Sweeney Todd is a fictional character who first appeared as then
antagonistAn antagonist is a character, group of characters, or institution, that represents the opposition against which the protagonist must contend...
of the
VictorianThe Victorian era of British history was the period of Queen Victoria's reign from 20 June 1837 until her death on 22 January 1901. It was a long period of peace, prosperity, refined sensibilities and national self-confidence...
penny dreadfulA penny dreadful was a type of British fiction publication in the 19th century that usually featured lurid serial stories appearing in parts over a number of weeks, each part costing an penny...
The String of PearlsThe String of Pearls: A Romance is the title of a fictional story first published as a penny dreadful serial 1846-47. The main antagonist of the story is the infamous Sweeney Todd, "the Demon Barber of Fleet Street", who here makes his literary debut....
(1846–1847) and he was later introduced as an antihero in the broadway musical
Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street and its film adaptation. Claims that Sweeney Todd was a historical person are strongly disputed by scholars, although there are possible legendary prototypes.
In the original version of the tale, Todd is a barber who dispatches his victims by pulling a lever while they are in his barber chair, which makes them fall backward down a revolving trapdoor into the basement of his shop, generally causing them to break their necks or skulls. Just in case they are alive, he goes to the basement and "polishes them off" (slitting their throats with his straight razor). In some adaptations, the murdering process is reversed, with Todd slitting the throats of his customers before they are dispatched into the basement via the revolving trapdoor. After Todd has robbed his dead victims of their goods,
Mrs. LovettMrs. Lovett is a fictional character appearing in many adaptations of the story Sweeney Todd. She is most commonly referred to as Nellie, although Margery, Maggie, Sarah, Shirley, Wilhemina and Claudetta are other names she has been given. First appearing in the penny dreadful serial The String of...
, his partner in crime (in some later versions, his friend and/or lover), assists him in disposing of the bodies by baking their flesh into
meat pieA meat pie is a savoury pie with a filling of meat and other savoury ingredients. Principally popular in Europe, Australia and New Zealand, meat pies differ from a pasty in the sense that a pasty is typically a more portable, on-the-go item, as opposed to a more conventional pie.-History:The...
s, and selling them to the unsuspecting customers of her pie shop. Todd's barber shop is situated at 186
Fleet StreetFleet Street is a street in central London, United Kingdom, named after the River Fleet, a stream that now flows underground. It was the home of the British press until the 1980s...
,
LondonLondon is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, next to
St. Dunstan's churchThe Guild Church of St Dunstan-in-the-West is in Fleet Street in London, England. An octagonal-shaped building, it is dedicated to a former bishop of London and archbishop of Canterbury.-History:...
, and is connected to Mrs. Lovett's pie shop in nearby Bell Yard by means of an underground passage. In most versions of the story, he and Mrs. Lovett hire an unwitting orphan boy,
Tobias RaggTobias "Toby" Ragg is a fictional character who appears in various adaptations of the story Sweeney Todd.In the penny dreadful The String of Pearls, Tobias Ragg is in a madhouse, driven mad by Sweeney Todd, a barber who murdered his customers....
, to serve the pies to customers.
The tale surrounding the character became a staple of Victorian
melodramaThe term melodrama refers to a dramatic work that exaggerates plot and characters in order to appeal to the emotions. It may also refer to the genre which includes such works, or to language, behavior, or events which resemble them...
. Later it was the subject of a 1959 ballet by
EnglishThe English are a nation and ethnic group native to England, who speak English. The English identity is of early mediaeval origin, when they were known in Old English as the Anglecynn. England is now a country of the United Kingdom, and the majority of English people in England are British Citizens...
composer Sir Malcolm Arnold and, in 1979, a
Tony awardThe Antoinette Perry Award for Excellence in Theatre, more commonly known as a Tony Award, recognizes achievement in live Broadway theatre. The awards are presented by the American Theatre Wing and The Broadway League at an annual ceremony in New York City. The awards are given for Broadway...
-winning Broadway musical by
Stephen SondheimStephen Joshua Sondheim is an American composer and lyricist for stage and film. He is the winner of an Academy Award, multiple Tony Awards including the Special Tony Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Theatre, multiple Grammy Awards, a Pulitzer Prize and the Laurence Olivier Award...
. Sweeney Todd has also been featured in several films, the most recent being 2007's
Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, directed by
Tim BurtonTimothy William "Tim" Burton is an American film director, film producer, writer and artist. He is famous for dark, quirky-themed movies such as Beetlejuice, Edward Scissorhands, The Nightmare Before Christmas, Ed Wood, Sleepy Hollow, Corpse Bride and Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet...
and starring
Johnny DeppJohn Christopher "Johnny" Depp II is an American actor, producer and musician. He has won the Golden Globe Award and Screen Actors Guild award for Best Actor. Depp rose to prominence on the 1980s television series 21 Jump Street, becoming a teen idol...
, based on the 1979 musical.
The String of Pearls
The original version of the tale,
The String of Pearls, is set in London in 1785 and concerns the strange disappearance of a sailor named Lieutenant Thornhill, last seen entering Sweeney Todd's establishment on Fleet Street. Thornhill was bearing a gift of a string of pearls (of the title) to a girl named Johanna Oakley on behalf of her missing lover, Mark Ingestrie, who is presumed lost at sea. One of Thornhill's seafaring friends, Colonel Jeffery, is alerted to Thornhill's disappearance by his faithful dog, Hector, and investigates his whereabouts. He wants to know what happened to Johanna's lover, Mark Ingestrie. Johanna's suspicions of Sweeney Todd's involvement lead her to dress up as a boy and enter Todd's employment, after his last assistant, Tobias Ragg, has been incarcerated in a madhouse. Eventually, the full grisly horror of Todd's activities are uncovered when the dismembered remains of hundreds of his victims are discovered in the crypt underneath St. Dunstan's church. Meanwhile, Mark Ingestrie, who has been imprisoned in the cellars beneath the pie shop and put to work as the cook, escapes via the lift used to bring the pies up from the cellar into the pie-shop. Here he makes the following announcement to the customers of that establishment:
- Ladies and Gentlemen — I fear that what I am going to say will spoil your appetites; but the truth is beautiful at all times, and I have to state that Mrs Lovett's pies are made of human flesh!
Todd then poisons Mrs. Lovett before being apprehended and hanged. For her part, Johanna marries Mark and lives happily ever after.
Sondheim's adaptation
In Stephen Sondheim's 1979 opera,
Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet StreetSweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street is a 1936 British film produced and directed by George King.-Plot:The film features Tod Slaughter in one of his most famous roles as barber Sweeney Todd. Sweeney Todd was wrongly sentenced to life in prison. After his release 15 years later, he begins...
, based on the 1973 play of the same name by Christopher Bond, Todd is reinvented as a tragic character driven by revenge rather than greed.
The show establishes that Todd was once Benjamin Barker, a middle class barber, married to Lucy Barker with whom he had an infant daughter, Johanna. The villainous Judge Turpin wanted Lucy for himself, and had Barker arrested on false charges and transported for life to Australia. The play begins 15 years later, when the barber has returned to London, seeking news of his wife and child. Mrs. Lovett, a widow, owns the spectacularly unsuccessful meat pie shop below Todd’s old barbershop. She recognizes her former neighbor, and tells Todd that Lucy poisoned herself after Turpin raped her, and that the man adopted baby Johanna as his ward. By the time Todd has returned to London, Johanna has become a young woman and fallen in love with a sailor, Anthony Hope, with whom she plans to elope.
In the Sondheim adaption, Mrs. Lovett takes in an orphan boy, Tobias Ragg, called Toby, after Todd kills his previous master, Adolfo Pirelli, a former assistant of Todd's who tries to blackmail him by threatening to reveal the man's true identity. After Turpin narrowly escapes his grasp, Todd swears revenge upon the entire world, resolving to kill as many people as he can. Mrs. Lovett then suggests they turn his victims' remains into pies. Subsequently, Mrs. Lovett's pie shop becomes incredibly successful.
Todd finally kills Judge Turpin, as well as a deranged beggar woman who turns out to be none other than Lucy, Todd's long-lost wife, who had been driven insane. When Mrs. Lovett confesses that she kept Lucy a secret because she loves him, he waltzes her around the room before throwing her into the bakehouse oven. As Todd grieves over his wife's body, Toby, gone mad after discovering the secret of the meat pies and Sweeney's murder of Mrs. Lovett, whom he loved like a mother, sneaks up behind him and slashes Todd's throat with the man's own razor. Todd dies with his wife's body in his arms. Anthony and Johanna, having accidentally witnessed Turpin's murder, return with two policemen, only to find the bakehouse floor littered with dead bodies. The only living soul is Toby, now a raving lunatic, his hair white from shock.
Literary history
Sweeney Todd first appeared in a story entitled
The String of Pearls: A Romance. This
penny dreadfulA penny dreadful was a type of British fiction publication in the 19th century that usually featured lurid serial stories appearing in parts over a number of weeks, each part costing an penny...
was published in 18 weekly parts, in Edward Lloyd's
The People's Periods and Family Library, issues 7-24, 21 November 1846 to 20 March 1847. It was probably written by
James Malcolm RymerJames Malcolm Rymer was a British nineteenth century writer of penny dreadfuls, and is the probable author of Varney the Vampire and co-author of The String of Pearls , in which the notorious villain Sweeney Todd makes his literary debut.Information about Rymer is sketchy...
, though
Thomas Peckett PrestThomas Peckett Prest was a British hack writer, journalist and musician. He was a prolific producer of penny dreadfuls. He is now remembered as the co-creator of the fictional Sweeney Todd, the 'demon barber' immortalized in his The String of Pearls...
has also been credited with it; it is likely that each worked on the serial from part to part. Other attributions include Edward P. Hingston, George Macfarren and Albert Richard Smith. In February/March 1847, before the serial was even completed,
The String of Pearls was adapted as a melodrama by George Dibden Pitt for the
Britannia TheatreThe Britannia Theatre was located at 115/117 High Street, Hoxton, London. The theatre was badly damaged by a fire in 1900. The site was reused as a Gaumont cinema from 1913 to 1940, when this too was destroyed...
in
HoxtonHoxton is an area in the London Borough of Hackney, immediately north of the financial district of the City of London. The area of Hoxton is bordered by Regent's Canal on the north side, Wharf Road and City Road on the west, Old Street on the south, and Kingsland Road on the east.Hoxton is also a...
. It was in this alternative version of the tale, rather than the original, that Todd acquired his catchphrase: "I'll polish him off".
Neil GaimanNeil Richard Gaiman born 10 November 1960)is an English author of short fiction, novels, comic books, graphic novels, audio theatre and films. His notable works include the comic book series The Sandman and novels Stardust, American Gods, Coraline, and The Graveyard Book...
, in a promotional "penny dreadful", identified a number of earlier texts that feed into the Todd story, some dating back to at least the late 17th century.
Another, lengthier, penny part serial was published by Lloyd from 1847/8, with 92 episodes and published in book form in 1850 as
The String of Pearls with the subtitle "The Barber of Fleet Street. A Domestic Romance". This expanded version of the story was 732 pages long. A
plagiarisedPlagiarism is defined in dictionaries as the "wrongful appropriation," "close imitation," or "purloining and publication" of another author's "language, thoughts, ideas, or expressions," and the representation of them as one's own original work, but the notion remains problematic with nebulous...
version of this appeared in America c. 1852–53 as
Sweeney Todd: or the Ruffian Barber. A Tale of Terror of the Seas and the Mysteries of the City by "Captain Merry" (a pseudonym for American author Harry Hazel (1814–89)).
In 1875, Frederick Hazleton's c. 1865 dramatic adaptation
Sweeney Todd, the Barber of Fleet Street: or the String of Pearls (see below) was published as Vol 102 of
Lacy's Acting Edition of Plays.
A scholarly, annotated edition of the original 1846–47 serial was published in volume form in 2007 by the
Oxford University PressOxford University Press is the largest university press in the world. It is a department of the University of Oxford and is governed by a group of 15 academics appointed by the Vice-Chancellor known as the Delegates of the Press. They are headed by the Secretary to the Delegates, who serves as...
under the title of
Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, edited by Robert Mack.
Alleged historical basis
The original story of Sweeney Todd was quite possibly based on an older
urban legendAn urban legend, urban myth, urban tale, or contemporary legend, is a form of modern folklore consisting of stories that may or may not have been believed by their tellers to be true...
, originally based on dubious pie-fillings. In Charles Dickens's
Pickwick Papers (1836/7), the servant Sam Weller says that a pieman used cats 'for beefsteak, veal and kidney, 'cording to the demand', and recommends that people should buy pies only 'when you know the lady as made it, and is quite sure it ain't kitten.' Dickens then developed this in
Martin ChuzzlewitThe Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit is a novel by Charles Dickens, considered the last of his picaresque novels. It was originally serialized between 1843-1844. Dickens himself proclaimed Martin Chuzzlewit to be his best work, but it was one of his least popular novels...
(1843-4) published two years before the appearance of Sweeney Todd in
The String of Pearls (1846-7), a character called Tom Pinch is grateful that his own "evil genius did not lead him into the dens of any of those preparers of
cannibalicCannibalism is the act or practice of humans eating the flesh of other human beings. It is also called anthropophagy...
pastry, who are represented in many country legends as doing a lively retail business in the metropolis". A similar story, which first appeared in an 1824 publication called
The Tell Tale, reported how a barber and wig-maker of the
Rue de la HarpeThe rue de la Harpe is a street in Paris' Latin Quarter. Relatively calm and cobblestoned along much of its length, it runs in a south-easterly direction between the rue de la Huchette and the rue Saint-Séverin, where it turns south-west to where it ends at the boulevard Saint-Germain...
in
ParisParis is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
cut his customers' throats, relieved them of their valuables and then had their bodies made into meat pies, utilising the services of a pastry cook, whose establishment was on the same street.
Claims that Sweeney Todd was a real person were first made in the introduction to the 1850 (expanded) edition of
The String of Pearls and have persisted to the present day. In two books,
Peter HainingPeter Alexander Haining was a British journalist, author and anthologist who lived and worked in Suffolk...
argued that Sweeney Todd was a historical figure who committed his crimes around 1800. Nevertheless, other researchers who have tried to verify his citations find nothing in these sources to back Haining's claims. A check of the website
Old BaileyThe Central Criminal Court in England and Wales, commonly known as the Old Bailey from the street in which it stands, is a court building in central London, one of a number of buildings housing the Crown Court...
at for "Associated Records 1674-1834" for an alleged trial in December 1801 and hanging of Sweeney Todd for January 1802 show no reference; the only murder trial for this period is that of a Governor/Lt Col.
Joseph WallCaptain Joseph Wall was a British army officer and convicted murderer.Wall volunteered for service around 1760 and participated in the 1762 siege of Havana during the Seven Year's War for which he was elevated to the rank of Captain. He then served with the British East India Company for a few...
who was hanged 28 January 1802 for killing a Benjamin Armstrong on 10 July 1782 on the isle of
GoréeÎle de Gorée Île de Gorée Île de Gorée (i.e. "Gorée Island"; is one of the 19 communes d'arrondissement (i.e. "commune of arrondissement") of the city of Dakar, Senegal. It is a island located at sea from the main harbor of Dakar ....
,
West AfricaWest Africa or Western Africa is the westernmost region of the African continent. Geopolitically, the UN definition of Western Africa includes the following 16 countries and an area of approximately 5 million square km:-Flags of West Africa:...
, and the discharge of a Humphrey White in January 1802.
A late (1890s) reference to the urban legend of the murdering barber can be found in the poem by the
AustraliaAustralia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
n
bush poetBush poets were Australian poets who wrote about Australian rural life during colonial times and about the Australian bush. Many colonial bush poets were illiterate and performed their poems from memory instead of writing them. Bush poetry evolved from the jokes and stories shared by early settlers...
Banjo PatersonAndrew Barton "Banjo" Paterson, OBE was an Australian bush poet, journalist and author. He wrote many ballads and poems about Australian life, focusing particularly on the rural and outback areas, including the district around Binalong, New South Wales where he spent much of his childhood...
-
The Man from Ironbark"The Man From Ironbark" is a famous poem by Australian bush poet Banjo Paterson.It was first published in The Bulletin on 17 December 1892. The poem relates the experiences of a naïve man from the Bush, who reacts badly to a practical joke sprung on him by a mischievous barber in Sydney...
.
On stage, screen and audio
- The String of Pearls (1847) a melodrama by George Dibden Pitt. It opened at Hoxton's Britannia Theatre, and billed as "founded on fact". It was something of a success, and the story spread by word of mouth and took on the quality of an urban legend. Various versions of the tale were staples of the British theatre for the rest of the century.
- Sweeney Todd, the Barber of Fleet Street: or the String of Pearls (c. 1865), a dramatic adaption written by Frederick Hazleton which premiered at the Old Bower Saloon, Stangate Street, Lambeth
Lambeth is a district of south London, England, and part of the London Borough of Lambeth. It is situated southeast of Charing Cross.-Toponymy:...
.
- "Sweeney Todd, The Barber", a song which assumes its audience knows the stage version and claims that such a character existed in real life. Stanley Holloway
Stanley Augustus Holloway, OBE was an English stage and film actor, comedian, singer, poet and monologist. He was famous for his comic and character roles on stage and screen, especially that of Alfred P. Doolittle in My Fair Lady...
, who recorded it in 1956, attributed it to R. P. WestonRobert Patrick Weston was an English songwriter. He was born and died in London. Among other songs, he co-authored , "With Her Head Tucked Underneath Her Arm", a macabre little ditty about the ghost of Anne Boleyn haunting the Tower of London, seeking revenge on Henry VIII for having her...
, a songwriter active from 1906 to 1934.
- Sweeney Todd (1926), the first film version of the story, starring G.A. Baughan in the title role. The film is now lost
A lost film is a feature film or short film that is no longer known to exist in studio archives, private collections or public archives such as the Library of Congress, where at least one copy of all American films are deposited and catalogued for copyright reasons...
.
- Sweeney Todd (1928) a silent film
A silent film is a film with no synchronized recorded sound, especially with no spoken dialogue. In silent films for entertainment the dialogue is transmitted through muted gestures, pantomime and title cards...
starring Moore MarriottMoore Marriott was a British character actor most notable for a series of films he made with Will Hay in the 1930s.-Career:...
as Sweeney Todd and Iris Darbyshire as Mrs. Lovett. This is the first surviving film adaptation.
- Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (1936), a film version of the Victorian
The Victorian era of British history was the period of Queen Victoria's reign from 20 June 1837 until her death on 22 January 1901. It was a long period of peace, prosperity, refined sensibilities and national self-confidence...
melodrama starring Tod SlaughterTod Slaughter was an English actor, best known for playing over-the-top maniacs in macabre film adaptations of Victorian melodramas.-Ealy life:...
as Sweeney Todd and Stella Rho as Mrs. "Lovatt".
- "The Strange Case of the Demon Barber" (8 January 1946), an adaptation of the Sweeney Todd story featured in an episode of the radio drama The New Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
The New Adventures of Sherlock Holmes was an old-time radio show which aired in the USA from October 2, 1939 to July 7, 1947. Most episodes were written by the team of Dennis Green and Anthony Boucher....
. In this interpretation, an actor playing the character on stage begins to believe he is committing similar murders while sleepwalking, while Holmes and Watson uncover something different that may prove his sanity.
- In 1947, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation
The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, commonly known as CBC and officially as CBC/Radio-Canada, is a Canadian crown corporation that serves as the national public radio and television broadcaster...
's CBCCBC Radio One is the English language news and information radio network of the publicly-owned Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. It is commercial free and offers both local and national programming...
Stage Series broadcast a radio adaptation of the Pitt play starring Mavor MooreJames Mavor Moore, CC, OBC was a Canadian writer, producer, actor, public servant, critic, and educator.-Biography:...
as Todd, Jane MallettJane Mallett was born in London, Ontario, Canada. She was a notable Canadian stage and film actress, born Jean Dawson Keenleyside....
as Mrs. Lovett, John DrainieJohn Robert Roy Drainie was a Canadian actor and television presenter, who was called "the greatest radio actor in the world" by Orson Welles....
as Tobias, Lloyd BochnerLloyd Wolfe Bochner was a Canadian actor, usually playing the role of suave, rich leading men.- Career :...
as Mark Ingesterie and Arden Kaye as Johanna Oakley. The production was adapted by Ronald Hamilton and directed by Andrew Allan, with original music composed by Lucio AgostiniLucio Agostini was an Italian-born composer, arranger, and conductor who established his career in Canada.-Life:...
.
- Sweeney Todd
The ballet Sweeney Todd, Op. 68 by Malcolm Arnold was completed in 1959.It is a one act ballet based on the legend of Sweeney Todd. The original choreography was directed by John Cranko....
(1959), a balletBallet is a type of performance dance, that originated in the Italian Renaissance courts of the 15th century, and which was further developed in France and Russia as a concert dance form. The early portions preceded the invention of the proscenium stage and were presented in large chambers with...
version performed by the Royal Ballet with music by Malcolm ArnoldSir Malcolm Henry Arnold, CBE was an English composer and symphonist.Malcolm Arnold began his career playing trumpet professionally, but by age thirty his life was devoted to composition. He was ranked with Benjamin Britten as one of the most sought-after composers in Britain...
. The choreographyChoreography is the art of designing sequences of movements in which motion, form, or both are specified. Choreography may also refer to the design itself, which is sometimes expressed by means of dance notation. The word choreography literally means "dance-writing" from the Greek words "χορεία" ...
was directed by John CrankoJohn Cyril Cranko was a choreographer with the Sadler's Wells Ballet and the Stuttgart Ballet....
.
- Bloodthirsty Butchers
Bloodthirsty Butchers is a horror film directed by Andy Milligan. It is an adaptation of the notorious story of Sweeney Todd.- Plot :...
(1970), a horror filmHorror films seek to elicit a negative emotional reaction from viewers by playing on the audience's most primal fears. They often feature scenes that startle the viewer through the means of macabre and the supernatural, thus frequently overlapping with the fantasy and science fiction genres...
with John Miranda as Sweeney Todd and Jane Helay as Maggie Lovett, directed by Andy MilliganAndy Milligan was an American playwright, screenwriter, cinematographer, actor, film editor, producer, and director, whose work includes 27 films made between 1965 and 1988.-Biography:...
.
- "Sweeney Todd" (1970), an episode of the ITV
ITV is the major commercial public service TV network in the United Kingdom. Launched in 1955 under the auspices of the Independent Television Authority to provide competition to the BBC, it is also the oldest commercial network in the UK...
series Mystery and ImaginationMystery and Imagination is a British television anthology series of classic horror and supernatural dramas. Five series were broadcast from 1966 to 1970 by ITV and featured plays based on the works of well-known authors such as Robert Louis Stevenson, Bram Stoker, Mary Shelley, M. R. James, and...
starring Freddie JonesFrederick Charles "Freddie" Jones is an English character actor.Jones was born in the town of Longton, Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire, the son of Ida Elizabeth and Charles Edward Jones. He became an actor after ten years of working as a laboratory assistant with a firm making ceramic products,...
as Sweeney Todd and Heather Canning as Nellie Lovett. In this adaptation, written by Vincent Tilsey and directed by Reginald Collin, the title character is portrayed as insane rather than evil. Lewis Fiander played Mark Ingesterie with Mel Martin as the heroine Charlotte and Len Jones as Tobias.
- Sweeney Todd (1973), an hour-long TV production by the CBC Television
CBC Television is a Canadian television network owned by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, the national public broadcaster.Although the CBC is supported by public funding, the television network supplements this funding with commercial advertising revenue, in contrast to CBC Radio which are...
series The Purple Playhouse with Barry MorseHerbert "Barry" Morse was an Anglo-Canadian actor of stage, screen, and radio best known for his roles in the ABC television series The Fugitive and the British sci-fi drama Space: 1999...
as Todd. This was again Pitt's version of the play.
- Sweeney Todd, The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (1973), a play by the British playwright Christopher Bond
Christopher Godfrey Bond is a British playwright whose 1973retelling of the Victorian tale Sweeney Todd formed the basis of Stephen Sondheim's musical of the same name, with book by Hugh Wheeler...
. This version of the story was the first to give Todd a more sympathetic motive: he is a wrongfully imprisoned barber who returns to LondonLondon is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
after 15 years in an Australian penal colonyA penal colony is a settlement used to exile prisoners and separate them from the general populace by placing them in a remote location, often an island or distant colonial territory...
under the new name Sweeney Todd, only to find that the judge responsible for his imprisonment has rapeRape is a type of sexual assault usually involving sexual intercourse, which is initiated by one or more persons against another person without that person's consent. The act may be carried out by physical force, coercion, abuse of authority or with a person who is incapable of valid consent. The...
d his young wife and driven her to suicideSuicide is the act of intentionally causing one's own death. Suicide is often committed out of despair or attributed to some underlying mental disorder, such as depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, alcoholism, or drug abuse...
, and adopted his daughter. He at first plans to kill the judge, but when his prey escapes, he swears revenge on the whole world and begins to slash the throats of his customers. The character's new, tragic backstory was Bond's way of grafting dramatic themes from The Revenger's TragedyThe Revenger's Tragedy is an English language Jacobean revenge tragedy, in the past attributed to Cyril Tourneur but is sometimes considered to be the work of Thomas Middleton by "Middletonians"...
onto Pitt's stage plot.
- Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street. A Musical Thriller
Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street is a 1936 British film produced and directed by George King.-Plot:The film features Tod Slaughter in one of his most famous roles as barber Sweeney Todd. Sweeney Todd was wrongly sentenced to life in prison. After his release 15 years later, he begins...
(1979), the acclaimed musical adaptation of Bond's play by Stephen SondheimStephen Joshua Sondheim is an American composer and lyricist for stage and film. He is the winner of an Academy Award, multiple Tony Awards including the Special Tony Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Theatre, multiple Grammy Awards, a Pulitzer Prize and the Laurence Olivier Award...
and Hugh WheelerHugh Callingham Wheeler was an English-born playwright, screenwriter, librettist, poet, and translator. He resided in the United States from 1934 until his death and became a naturalized citizen in 1942. He had attended London University.Under the noms de plume Patrick Quentin, Q...
starring Len CariouLeonard Joseph “Len” Cariou is a Canadian actor, best known for his portrayal of Sweeney Todd in the original cast of Sweeney Todd, the Demon Barber of Fleet Street...
as Sweeney Todd (here christened Benjamin Barker) and Angela LansburyAngela Brigid Lansbury CBE is an English actress and singer in theatre, television and motion pictures, whose career has spanned eight decades and earned her more performance Tony Awards than any other individual , with five wins...
as Mrs. Lovett. George HearnGeorge Hearn is an American actor and singer, primarily in Broadway musical theatre.-Early years:Born in St. Louis, Missouri, Hearn studied philosophy at Southwestern at Memphis, now Rhodes College before he embarked on a career in the theater, training for the stage with actress turned acting...
later replaced Cariou and Dorothy LoudonDorothy Loudon was an American comedy actress and singer. She won the 1977 Tony Award for Best Performance by a Leading Actress in a Musical and the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Featured Actress in a Musical for her portrayal of Miss Hannigan in Annie.-Early life and career:Loudon was born in...
later replaced Lansbury. In 1982, the musical was televised on The Entertainment ChannelE! Entertainment Television is an American basic cable and satellite television network, owned by NBCUniversal. It features entertainment-related programming, reality television, feature films and occasionally series and specials unrelated to the entertainment industry.E! has an audience reach of...
, starring Hearn and Lansbury, and directed by Terry HughesTerry Hughes is a British Emmy Award-winning television director.Hughes has directed or written for The Two Ronnies, The Golden Girls, 3rd Rock from the Sun, Friends, and series such as Ripping Yarns among other shows....
and Harold Prince . It was produced by Archer King, and Bonnie Burns. The Production Company was RKO PicturesRKO Pictures is an American film production and distribution company. As RKO Radio Pictures Inc., it was one of the Big Five studios of Hollywood's Golden Age. The business was formed after the Keith-Albee-Orpheum theater chains and Joseph P...
and RKO/Nederlander Productions.
- The Tale of Sweeney Todd
The Tale of Sweeney Todd is a 1998 American television movie directed by John Schlesinger. The teleplay by Peter Buckman was adapted from a story by Peter Shaw. It was broadcast in the United States by Showtime on April 19, 1998 and released on videotape in France the following month...
(1998), a television movie directed by John SchlesingerJohn Richard Schlesinger, CBE was an English film and stage director and actor.-Early life:Schlesinger was born in London into a middle-class Jewish family, the son of Winifred Henrietta and Bernard Edward Schlesinger, a physician...
, commissioned by British Sky BroadcastingBritish Sky Broadcasting Group plc is a satellite broadcasting, broadband and telephony services company headquartered in London, United Kingdom, with operations in the United Kingdom and the Ireland....
for which Ben KingsleySir Ben Kingsley, CBE is a British actor. He has won an Oscar, BAFTA, Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild awards in his career. He is known for starring as Mohandas Gandhi in the film Gandhi in 1982, for which he won the Academy Award for Best Actor...
received a Screen Actors GuildThe Screen Actors Guild is an American labor union representing over 200,000 film and television principal performers and background performers worldwide...
Best Actor nomination for his portrayal of the title role. Joanna LumleyJoanna Lamond Lumley, OBE, FRGS is a British actress, voice-over artist, former-model and author, best known for her roles in British television series Absolutely Fabulous portraying Edina Monsoon's best friend, Patsy Stone, as well as parts in The New Avengers, Sapphire & Steel, and Sensitive...
portrayed Mrs. Lovett.
- Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street in Concert (2001), a filmed concert version of Sondheim's musical, stars George Hearn as Sweeney Todd/Benjamin Barker, Patti LuPone
Patti Ann LuPone is an American singer and actress, known for her Tony Award-winning performances as Eva Perón in the 1979 stage musical Evita and as Madame Rose in the 2008 Broadway revival of Gypsy, and for her Olivier Award-winning performance as Fantine in the original London cast of Les...
as Mrs. Lovett, Timothy NolenTimothy Nolen is an American actor and baritone who has had an active career in operas, musicals, concerts, plays, and on television for over four decades. He notably portrayed the title role in the first operatic presentation of Stephen Sondheim's Sweeney Todd at the Houston Grand Opera in 1984...
as Judge Turpin, and Neil Patrick HarrisNeil Patrick Harris is an American actor, singer, director, and magician.Prominent roles of his career include the title role in Doogie Howser, M.D., Colonel Carl Jenkins in Starship Troopers, the womanizing Barney Stinson in How I Met Your Mother, a fictionalized version of himself in the Harold...
as Tobias.
- In Jersey Girl
Jersey Girl is a 2004 American comedy-drama film written and directed by Kevin Smith. It stars Ben Affleck, Liv Tyler, Raquel Castro, George Carlin, Jason Biggs, Jennifer Lopez and Will Smith...
(2004) Ollie Trinke (Ben Affleck) and his on screen daughter sing "God, That's Good!!" from the Sondheim version for her school play, accompanied by Liv Tyler.
- The second episode of the BBC Radio comedy series 1835, entitled "Haircut, Sir?", written by Jim Poyser and broadcast in June 2004 had aimless aristocrat Viscount Belport (Paul Rider) and his servant Ned (Jason Done
Jason Done is a British actor.-Background:Jason Done was born and raised in Walkden, City of Salford, United Kingdom. His love for acting began at an early age after watching the Ken Loach film, Kes...
) joining the police force under Sir Robert Peel and encountering demon barber Sweeney Todd (Jonathan Keeble) on their first case.
- A Broadway revival of the Sondheim musical, directed by John Doyle
John Doyle is a Tony Award winning Scottish stage director for musicals and plays, as well as operas. He has served as artistic director at several regional theatres in the United Kingdom, where he has staged more than 200 professional productions during his career spanning 30...
, was mounted at the Eugene O'Neill TheatreThe Eugene O'Neill Theatre is a Broadway theatre located at 230 West 49th Street in midtown-Manhattan.Designed by architect Herbert J. Krapp, it was built for the Shuberts as part of a theatre-hotel complex named for 19th century tragedian Edwin Forrest...
in 2005. The ten-person cast, who played their own instruments in new orchestrations, consisted of John Arbo (Jonas Fogg; bass player), Donna Lynne ChamplinDonna Lynne Champlin is an actress from New York City. She is married to actor Andrew Arrow.Her burgeoning career began at the age of four, when she performed a tap solo in a local variety show...
(Pirelli; piano, accordion, flute), Alexander GemignaniAlexander Cesare Gemignani is a Broadway actor and tenor. Gemignani was raised in Tenafly, New Jersey and is a graduate of the University of Michigan's Musical Theater Department...
(The Beadle; piano, trumpet), Mark JacobyMark Jacoby is a Broadway performer. He has achieved fame from his leading roles in Show Boat, The Phantom of the Opera and Ragtime...
(Judge Turpin; trumpet, percussion), Diana DiMarzio (Beggar Woman/Lucy Barker; clarinet), Benjamin Magnuson (Anthony Hope; cello, piano), Lauren MolinaLauren Molina is an American actress, singer, songwriter, and musician. She made her Broadway debut in the critically acclaimed 2005 revival of Sweeney Todd, playing the role of the Johanna. In this production, Molina played the cello onstage. In 2008, she originated the role of Regina/Candi in...
(Johanna Barker; cello), Manoel FelcianoManoel Felciano is an American actor, singer, and songwriter. He is best known for playing Tobias Ragg in the 2005 Broadway revival of Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, for which he was nominated for a Tony Award for Best Performance by a Featured Actor in a Musical...
(Tobias; violin, clarinet, piano), Patti LuPone (Mrs. Lovett; tuba, percussion), and Michael CerverisMichael Cerveris is an American singer, guitarist and actor. He has performed in many stage musicals and plays, including in several Stephen Sondheim musicals: Assassins, Sweeney Todd, Road Show, and Passion...
(Sweeney Todd; guitar). Cerveris, LuPone, and Felciano were all nominated for Tony AwardThe Antoinette Perry Award for Excellence in Theatre, more commonly known as a Tony Award, recognizes achievement in live Broadway theatre. The awards are presented by the American Theatre Wing and The Broadway League at an annual ceremony in New York City. The awards are given for Broadway...
s; the show itself was nominated at the Tonys for Best Revival and won Best Direction and Best Orchestration.
- Sweeney Todd (2006), a BBC television drama
BBC television dramas have been produced and broadcast since even before the public service company had an officially established television broadcasting network in the United Kingdom...
version with a screenplay written by Joshua St Johnston and starring Ray WinstoneRaymond Andrew "Ray" Winstone is an English film and television actor. He is mostly known for his "tough guy" roles, beginning with that of Carlin in the 1979 film Scum and as Will Scarlet in the cult television adventure series Robin of Sherwood. He has also become well known as a voice over...
in the title role and Essie DavisEssie Davis is an Australian actress. Born and raised in Hobart, Tasmania, she is the daughter of locally famed artist George Davis.She emerged from the Old Nick Company at the University of Tasmania in the late 1980s and has gone on to appear in Hollywood movies. She is a graduate of the National...
as Mrs Lovett.
- Sweeney Todd and the String of Pearls: an Audio Melodrama in Three Despicable Acts (2007), an audio play by Yuri Rasovsky
Yuri Rasovsky is an American award-winning writer and producer working in the field of radio drama in the United States....
, won three 2008 Audie Awards for best audio drama, best original work and for achievement in production.
- Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (2007) a film directed by Tim Burton
Timothy William "Tim" Burton is an American film director, film producer, writer and artist. He is famous for dark, quirky-themed movies such as Beetlejuice, Edward Scissorhands, The Nightmare Before Christmas, Ed Wood, Sleepy Hollow, Corpse Bride and Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet...
, adapted from Sondheim's musical. It stars Johnny DeppJohn Christopher "Johnny" Depp II is an American actor, producer and musician. He has won the Golden Globe Award and Screen Actors Guild award for Best Actor. Depp rose to prominence on the 1980s television series 21 Jump Street, becoming a teen idol...
as Sweeney Todd, Helena Bonham CarterHelena Bonham Carter is an English actress of film, stage, and television. She made her acting debut in a television adaptation of K. M. Peyton's A Pattern of Roses before winning her first film role as the titular character in Lady Jane...
as Mrs. Lovett, Alan RickmanAlan Sidney Patrick Rickman is an English actor and theatre director. He is a renowned stage actor in modern and classical productions and a former member of the Royal Shakespeare Company...
as Judge Turpin, and Ed SandersEdward Sanders is an English actor and singer. He is best known for his performance as Tobias Ragg in the 2007 film Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street. He was also featured on the film's soundtrack....
as Toby. The cast also includes Sacha Baron CohenSacha Noam Baron Cohen is an English stand-up comedian, actor, writer, and voice artist. He is most widely known for his portrayal of three unorthodox fictional characters: Ali G, Borat, and Brüno...
as Pirelli and Timothy SpallTimothy Leonard Spall, OBE is an English character actor and occasional presenter.-Early life:Spall, the third of four sons, was born in Battersea, London. His mother, Sylvia R. , was a hairdresser, and his father, Joseph L. Spall, was a postal worker...
as Beadle Bamford. The film received two Golden Globe AwardThe Golden Globe Award is an accolade bestowed by the 93 members of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association recognizing excellence in film and television, both domestic and foreign...
s - one for Best Actor in a Comedy or Musical (Johnny Depp), and one for Best Picture, Comedy or Musical. The film was also nominated for three Academy Awards, winning for Art Direction.
- "Demon Sweeney Todd", a song written by the NWOBHM band, Saxon
Saxon are an English heavy metal band, formed in 1976 in Barnsley, Yorkshire. As front-runners of the New Wave of British Heavy Metal, they had 8 UK Top 40 albums in the 1980s including 4 UK Top 10 albums. Saxon also had numerous singles in the Top 20 singles chart...
in their album Into The LabyrinthInto the Labyrinth is the 18th studio album by British heavy metal band Saxon, which was released on 9 January 2009. The album was made in between Saxon tours in 2008 and written by the band in England and at Biff Byford's house in France. The first single "Live to Rock" was released on 17 October...
released in 2009
- Sweeney Todd Musical, a 2009 musical rendition by the Repertory Philippines group, starring Audie Gemora in the title role, and Menchu Lauchengco-Yulo as Mrs. Lovett. Gerard Salonga
Gerard Salonga is a conductor, musical arranger, orchestrator and musical director from the Philippines. He is also the founder, musical director and conductor of FILharmoniKA, a symphony orchestra in the Philippines.-Biography:...
of Filharmonika conducted the orchestra. It was directed by Baby Barredo and Michael Williams.
- Oh My Meat Pie, an episode in the 12th season of Good Eats
Good Eats is a television cooking show created and hosted by Alton Brown which airs in North America on Food Network. Likened to television science educators Mr. Wizard and Bill Nye, Brown explores the science and technique behind the cooking, the history of different foods, and the advantages of...
, an educational cooking show on The Food Network starring Alton BrownAlton Crawford Brown is an American television personality, author, actor, and cinematographer. He is the creator and host of the Food Network television show Good Eats and the mini-series Feasting on Asphalt and Feasting on Waves, and he is the host and main commentator on Iron Chef America...
. Brown plays his great-grandfather who stumbles upon a pie shop in London run by Mrs. Lovett; they are frequently visited by her neighbor, Mr. Todd, a barber. At one point Lovett provides him with a large tub of ground meat for his recipe of shepherd's pieCottage pie or shepherd's pie is a meat pie with a crust of mashed potato.The term cottage pie is known to have been in use in 1791, when the potato was being introduced as an edible crop affordable for the poor Cottage pie or shepherd's pie is a meat pie with a crust of mashed potato.The term...
and is evasive about what type of meat it is.
- "Andy's Play
"Andy's Play" is the third episode of the seventh season of the American comedy television series The Office, and the show's 129th episode overall. Written by Charlie Grandy and directed by John Stuart Scott, the episode aired on NBC in the United States on October 7, 2010...
", the third episode in the 7th season of The Office, centers around Andy BernardAndrew "Andy" Baines Bernard is a fictional character from the U.S. television series The Office. The character is highly insecure, yet egotistical, constantly mentioning his education at Cornell University...
's role in a local musical production of Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street.
- "Major League of Extraordinary Gentlemen", the seventh episode in the 5th season of Robot Chicken
Robot Chicken is an American stop motion animated television series created and executive produced by Seth Green and Matthew Senreich along with co-head writers Douglas Goldstein and Tom Root. Green provides many voices for the show...
, SpongeBobSpongeBob SquarePants is a main fictional character in the animated television series SpongeBob SquarePants. He is voiced by Tom Kenny and first appeared on television in the series' pilot episode "Help Wanted" on May 1, 1999. SpongeBob was created and designed by cartoonist Stephen Hillenburg...
discovers that Mr. KrabsCaptain Eugene Harold "Armor Abs" Krabs is a fictional character in the American cartoon series SpongeBob SquarePants. He is voiced by Clancy Brown. Mr. Krabs is seen in most episodes of the show, as well as in movies, video games, and other media based on the series...
is killing other sea creatures and baking them into pastries. SpongeBob plays the role of Mark Ingestrie, while Mr. Krabs plays the role of Sweeney Todd.
- Inspired by Sweeney Todd's slaughter and sale of human flesh, the Danish motion picture "The Green Butchers
The Green Butchers is a 2003 Danish film starring Mads Mikkelsen, Nikolaj Lie Kaas, and Line Kruse, written and directed by Anders Thomas Jensen. It is a black comedy featuring two butchers, Svend "Sweat" and Bjarne, who start their own shop to get away from their arrogant boss...
", starring Mads Mikkelsen' is a Danish actor.-Life and career:Mikkelsen was born in the Østerbro area of Copenhagen, the son of Bente Christiansen and Henning Mikkelsen, a cab driver. He is the brother of actor Lars Mikkelsen. After attending Århus Theatre School, he made his film debut in the movie Pusher...
and Nikolaj Lie KaasNikolaj Lie Kaas is a prominent Danish actor whose career rose in the 1990s and who is still actively working today. He is also the host of the annual Zulu Comedy Galla on Danish TV....
, also features cannibalistic slaughter and sale of meat leading to a booming business mainly based on the human meat, in this instance sold as marinaded chicken.
- "Waiting to Exhale", the second episode of the 2nd season of the television series Dexter
Dexter is an American television drama series, which debuted on Showtime on October 1, 2006. The sixth season premiered on October 2, 2011. The series centers on Dexter Morgan , a bloodstain pattern analyst for the Miami Metro Police Department who moonlights as a serial killer...
. When Dexter Morgan asks his colleague Vince Masuka where the best place to hide a corpse is, he ends his extensive answer with "Hell, even meat pies."
Comics
The character of Sweeney Todd is presented as a villain in
Marc AndreykoMarc Andreyko is a comic book and screenplay writer, known for writing the 2000s ongoing series Manhunter for DC Comics...
's
Manhunter-Golden Age:The first of DC's Manhunters was a non-costumed independent investigator, Paul Kirk, who helped police solve crimes during the early 1940s. Though the series was titled "Paul Kirk, Manhunter", Kirk didn't use the Manhunter name as an alias...
series, where he appears as a ghost which
possessesDemonic possession is held by many belief systems to be the control of an individual by a malevolent supernatural being. Descriptions of demonic possessions often include erased memories or personalities, convulsions, “fits” and fainting as if one were dying...
men (causing them to resemble him) and murders women. A supporting character,
ObsidianObsidian is a fictional superhero published by DC Comics. He first appeared in All-Star Squadron #25 , and was created by Roy Thomas and Jerry Ordway. According to an Infinity, Inc...
, is shown to be a fan of Sondheim's musical.
Neil Gaiman and
Michael ZulliMichael Zulli is an American artist known for his work as an animal and wildlife illustrator and as a comic book illustrator. He's gotten great acclaim for his work on The Sandman with writer Neil Gaiman and has been a longtime collaborator with the author...
were to have created a Sweeney Todd adaptation for Taboo, published by Steve Bissette and Tundra, but only completed a prologue.
Rhyming Slang
In rhyming slang Sweeney Todd is the
Flying SquadThe Flying Squad is a branch of the Specialist Crime Directorate, within London's Metropolitan Police Service. The Squad's purpose is to investigate commercial armed robberies, along with the prevention and investigation of other serious armed crime...
(a branch of the UK's Metropolitan Police), hence
The SweeneyThe Sweeney is a 1970s British television police drama focusing on two members of the Flying Squad, a branch of the Metropolitan Police specialising in tackling armed robbery and violent crime in London...
.
Further reading
- Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street edited by Robert Mack (2007). Oxford University Press. ISBN 0199229333
- Robert Mack (2008) The Wonderful and Surprising History of Sweeney Todd: The Life and Times of an Urban Legend. Continuum. ISBN 0826497918
External links