Sweeney Todd

File:Johnny Todd.jpg

Johnny Depp as Sweeney Todd in the 2007 film by Tim Burton.

Template:Otheruses2 Sweeney Todd is a fictional character appearing in various English language works beginning in 1846. In the most common version of the story, he is an English barber who murders his customers with a cut-throat razor (or "straight razor" in American English), and turns their remains into meat pies. The story became a staple of Victorian melodrama and a hit Broadway musical in 1979.

Story versions

In his past life, Todd was known as Benjamin Barker, a middle class barber, married to Lucy Barker with a daughter, Johanna. The villainous Judge Turpin exiles Benjamin to Australia on false charges in order to have Lucy to himself. Mrs. Lovett tells Todd that Lucy got poisoned. Turpin adopts baby Johanna as his ward. By the time Todd returns to London, Johanna has become a young woman and falls in love with a sailor, Antony, who attempts to steal her away from Judge Turpin, who has proposed to marry the girl. In some versions of the Sweeney Todd story Mrs. Lovett, his partner in crime and variously his friend or lover (and whose first name is variously Nellie, Marjorie, Sarah, Shirley, or Claudette), hides his crimes by butchering the corpses of Todd's victims, baking their flesh into meat pies, and selling them to unknowing customers.

In the original story, A String of Pearls, Sweeney Todd is still the same working class barber. Instead of killing for revenge, however, he kills in pure greed. At the end, he is arrested and hanged, while Mrs. Lovett commits suicide in her cell.

In every version, Mrs. Lovett takes in an orphan boy, Tobias Ragg, after Sweeney kills Ragg's previous guardian, Adolfo Pirelli. Ragg is generally the first character to catch onto Sweeney's crimes and also is responsible for Todd's death.

In almost every variation, Johanna, Antony, and Toby are the only characters who survive.

Literary history

Sweeney Todd first appeared in The String of Pearls: A Romance, published in penny part serial form in Edward Lloyd's The People's Periodical and Family Library, issues 7-24, 21 November 1846 to 20 March 1847. This story was probably written by James Malcolm Rymer, though Thomas Peckett Prest has also been credited with it. 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 Theatre in Hoxton. It was in this alternative version of the tale, rather than the original, that Todd acquired his catchphrase: "I'll polish him off".

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 in length.A plagarised 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 adaption 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.

In 1992 the first episode of a planned comic adaption titled Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street was published in issue #6 of Stephen R. Bissette's horror comics anthology Taboo. The adaption was written by Neil Gaiman, with artwork by Michael Zulli. The adaption was published as a pamphlet insert which came with the perfectbound book. Only the first episode was completed before the project was abandoned.

A scholarly, annotated, edition of the original 1846–47 serial was published in volume form in 2007 by the Oxford University Press under the title of Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, edited by Robert Mack.

Dramatic and musical adaptations

• The String of Pearls was adapted as a melodrama in 1847 by George Dibden Pitt and 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.
• Circa 1865, a dramatic adaption called Sweeney Todd, the Barber of Fleet Street: or the String of Pearls written by Frederick Hazleton premiered at the Old Bower Saloon, Stangate Street, Lambeth.
• In 1936 a film version of the Victorian melodrama was made, called Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber Of Fleet Street, starring Tod Slaughter in the title role.
• "Sweeney Todd, The Barber" is a song that assumes its audience knows the stage version and claims that such a character in real life was even more remarkable, yet it contains most of the story portrayed in the theater and cinema. Stanley Holloway, who recorded it in 1956, attributed it to R. P. Weston, a songwriter active from 1906 to 1934.

• An adaptation of the Sweeney Todd story was prominently featured in an episode of the radio drama The New Adventures of Sherlock Holmes entitled "The Strange Case of the Demon Barber" on 8 January 1946.
• In 1947, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's CBC Stage Series broadcast a radio adaptation of the Pitt play starring Mavor Moore as Todd, Jane Mallett as Mrs. Lovett, John Drainie as Tobias, Lloyd Bochner 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 Agostini.
• On 10 December 1959 the Royal Ballet premiered a ballet based on the story with music by Malcolm Arnold. The choreography was directed by John Cranko.
• A version of the story is told in the 1970 horror film Bloodthirsty Butchers, directed by Andy Milligan.
• In 1970, Freddie Jones starred as the title character in the episode "Sweeney Todd" on the ITV series Mystery and Imagination, an adaptation by Vincent Tilsey from the Pitt play that changed the character of Todd from a fiendish murderer to a deluded madman; the production was directed by Reginald Collin. Heather Canning played Mrs. Lovett, Lewis Fiander played Mark Ingesterie, Mel Martin played the heroine Charlotte and Len Jones played Tobias.
• The 1973 CBC TV series The Purple Playhouse featured a production of Sweeney Todd, with Barry Morse (best known for his role as "Lt. Gerard" in The Fugitive) as Todd. This was again Pitt's version of the play.
• The British playwright Christopher Bond wrote a 1973 play titled Sweeney Todd. This version of the story was the first to give Todd a more sympathetic motive: he is a wrongfully imprisoned barber named Benjamin Barker who returns under the name Sweeney Todd to London after 15 years in an Australian penal colony to find that the judge responsible for his imprisonment has raped his young wife and driven her to suicide. He swears revenge, but when his plans face obstacles, he begins to slash the throats of his customers. This new element of Todd being motivated by vengeance was Bond's way of grafting dramatic themes from The Revenger's Tragedy onto Pitt's stage plot.
• In 1979, Bond's version was adapted by Stephen Sondheim and Hugh Wheeler into a hit Broadway musical under the title Sweeney Todd, the Demon Barber of Fleet Street, originally starring Len Cariou as Sweeney Todd and Angela Lansbury as Mrs. Lovett. In 1982, the musical was televised on The Entertainment Channel, starring Lansbury and George Hearn, and directed by Terry Hughes and Harold Prince.
• In 1998, Ben Kingsley and Joanna Lumley starred in the John Schlesinger-directed The Tale of Sweeney Todd, a television movie commissioned by British Sky Broadcasting for which Kingsley received a Screen Actors Guild Best Actor nomination.
• In 2005, the Broadway Revival Cast made their recording of the show by Sondheim. It was a special redoing of the musical, re-scored specifically for a small orchestra to be played by the actors themselves. The cast consisted of John Arbo (Jonas Fogg; bass player), Donna Lynne Champlin (Pirelli; piano, accordion, flute), Alexander Gemignani (The Beadle; piano, trumpet), Mark Jacoby (Judge Turpin; trumpet, percussion), Diana DiMarzio (Beggar Woman/Lucy Barker; clarinet), Benjamin Magnuson (Anthony Hope; cello, piano), Lauren Molina (Johanna Barker; cello), Manoel Felciano (Tobias; violin, clarinet, piano)), Patti LuPone (Mrs. Lovett; tuba, percussion), and Michael Cerveris (Sweeney Todd; guitar). Cerveris, LuPone, and Felciano were all nominated for Tony Awards; the show itself was nominated at the Tonys for Best Revival and won Best Direction and Best Orchestration.
• A BBC television drama version with a screenplay written by Joshua St Johnston and starring Ray Winstone and Essie Davis was broadcast on BBC One on 3 January 2006.
• Tim Burton directed a film adaptation of Sondheim's musical starring Johnny Depp as Sweeney Todd, Helena Bonham Carter as Mrs. Lovett, Alan Rickman as Judge Turpin, and Ed Sanders as Tobias. The cast also included Sacha Baron Cohen and Timothy Spall. It opened in US theaters on 21 December 2007 and in the UK on 25 January 2008. The film received two Golden Globe Awards - 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.

Possible history

In two books, Peter Haining argues 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. There is also a similar story reputed to have occurred on the Rue de la Harpe in Paris that likely influenced the stories of Todd.

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

• Tod Slaughter in Sweeney Todd (1936)
• Sweeney Todd (1936) at IMDb
• Mystery and Imagination: Sweeney Todd at IMDb
• Sweeney Todd, the Demon Barber of Fleet Street (2007) at IMDb
• ​Sweeney Todd, the Demon Barber of Fleet Street​ at the Internet Broadway Database
• Doyle - Downstage Center interview at American Theatre Wing, November 2006
• The String of Pearls etext of the 1846/47 penny dreadful that first featured Sweeney Todd
• Sweeney Todd - Man or Myth? Crime Library
• Sweeney Todd fan site www.sweeneytoddonline.com