Sweeney Todd  

From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia

Revision as of 18:19, 1 February 2008

Cover of Sweeney Todd, published by Charles Fox in 48 numbers

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Sweeney Todd (1846) is a fictional psychopath/cannibal/antihero. A barber and serial killer, the character appears in various English language works starting in the mid-19th century. His weapon of choice is a straight razor, with which he cuts his victim's throats; in some versions of the story his lover, friend and accomplice, Margery (sometimes Nellie or Claudette) Lovett, bakes the carcasses into meat pies, selling them to unknowing customrers.

Early history

Todd's first appearance could have been in a British penny dreadful called The People's Periodical, in issue 7, dated November 21, 1846. The story in which he appeared was titled "The String of Pearls: A Romance," and was probably written by Thomas Prest, who created a number of other gruesome villains. He tended to base his horror stories on grains of truth, sometimes gaining inspiration from real crime reports in The Times.

Adaptations

See also Sweeney Todd (musical) and Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (2007 film)

• The String of Pearls was adapted as a melodrama in 1847 by George Dibden Pitt and opened at the Britannia Theatre in Hoxton, with the title Sweeney Todd the Demon Barber of Fleet Street 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.

• 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 song writer active from 1906 to 1934.

• In 1947, CBC Stage Series broadcast an over-the-top radio adaptation of the George Dibden Pitt play starring Mavor Moore as "Sweeney 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.

• The duo known as the Two Ronnies produced a musical sketch called "Teeny Todd, the Demon Barber of Queer Street" with Ronnie Corbett in the title role. The sketch features the barber cutting throats with a razor and then pulling a lever to send his victims into the baker's shop below.

• A version of Sweeney Todd's story is told in the 1970 horror film Bloodthirsty Butchers (Movie), 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 George Dibden Pitt play that changed the character of Sweeney Todd from a fiendish and gleeful murderer to a deluded madman; the production was directed by Robert Collin. Heather Canning played "Mrs. Lovett", Lewis Fiander played "Mark Ingesterie", Mel Martin played the heroine "Charlotte" and Len Jones played "Tobias".

• The children's book More Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark by Alvin Schwartz contains a version of Sweeney Todd called "Delicious Sausage" with a mad butcher named Blunt, based directly on the original Sweeney character.

• The 1973 CBC TV Series "The Purple Playhouse" featured a production of Sweeney Todd, with Barry Morse (Lt. Gerard from The Fugitive) as Mr. Todd. This was George Dibdin 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 motive other than pure greed: he is a wrongfully imprisoned barber named Benjamin Barker who returns under the name Sweeney Todd to London after fifteen years in Australia to find that the judge responsible for his imprisonment has raped his young wife and caused her to commit suicide. He swears revenge, but when his plans face obstacles, he begins to slash the throats of his customers. This new element of Sweeney Todd being motivated by vengeance was Bond's way of grafting dramatic themes from The Revenger's Tragedy onto George Dibden Pitt's stage plot.

• In 1979, Christopher 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.

• The first Portuguese version of Stephen Sondheim's musical (Sweeney Todd: o cruel barbeiro de Fleet Street) is directed in 1997 by João Lourenço and maestro João Paulo Santos and opened at Teatro Nacional D. Maria II in Lisbon, starring Jorge Vaz de Carvalho as Sweeney Todd and Helena Afonso as Mrs. Lovett.

• In 1998, Ben Kingsley and Joanna Lumley starred in the John Schlesinger-directed The Tale of Sweeney Todd, a television movie commissioned by Sky 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, rescored 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). Awards include: Cerveris, LuPone, and Felciano were all nominated for Tonys; the show itself was nominated at the Tonys for Best Revival and won Best Direction and Best Orchestration.

• The hit Cartoon Network show Courage the Cowardly Dog portrays a character named Freaky Fred who in occupation and design parodys that of The Sweeney Todd Character. He makes his first appearance in the episode of the same name, and has become one of the shows best known antagonists. Also in Courage the Cowardly Dog, (the episode Heads of Beef) Courage meets "Swiney Hog" the owner of a burger diner and his wife, and suspects them of using patrons in the meat. He appears in several episodes after that, including Cowboy Courage.

• A character called Sweeny Toddler was the titular character in a comic strip which appeared in certain Fleetway comics in the UK. Apart from his name and a tendency to cause mayhem, he bears no relation to the Sweeney Todd character.

• 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 January 3, 2006.

• Sweeney Todd and the String of Pearls: An Audio Melodrama in Three Despicable Acts was published as an audiobook in September 2007 by Blackstone Audio as part of the Hollywood Theatre of the Ear. The production was written/produced/directed by Yuri Rasovsky and featured Rosalind Ayres, Robertson Dean, Martin Jarvis, Moira Quirk, W. Morgan Sheppard and Simon Templeman.

• A second Portuguese version of Stephen Sondheim's musical (Sweeney Todd: o cruel barbeiro de Fleet Street) is directed in 2007 again by João Lourenço and maestro João Paulo Santos and opened at the new Teatro Aberto in Lisbon, starring Mário Redondo as Sweeney Todd and Ana Ester Neves as Mrs. Lovett.

• 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 U.S. theaters on December 21, 2007 and in the UK on January 25, 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.