SWEENEY TODD
By Amelia heather
WHO WAS SWEENEY TODD?
• Sweeney Todd was a fictional character. However many believe
he was real. He was a Victorian character who was named the
demon barber of fleet street. In the original version of the tale,
Todd is a barber who dispatches his victims by pulling a lever as
they sit in his barber chair. His victims fall backward down a
revolving trapdoor into the basement of his shop, generally
causing them to break their necks or skulls. In case they are
alive, Todd 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 his
customers' throats before dispatching them into the basement
via the revolving trapdoor
WHAT DID HE DO TO HIS VICTIMS?
Sweeney Todd not only slit his customers throat. He also robbed
them of their goods. Which he called ‘polishing them off’. He then
opened a trap door a chucked them down it causing them to crack
their skulls and break their necks. Leaving them to die slowly and
painfully. Then his partner in crime Mrs Lovett would take their
bodies and turn them into pies. Advertising them as ‘meat, pies.
WHERE WAS HIS BARBER SHOP
• Todd's barber shop was situated at 186 fleet street, london, next
to St Dunstan's church, and was 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 Ragg, to serve the pies to
customers.
BBC DRAMA SWEENEY TODD
• Ray Winstone stars as the notorious 'Demon Barber of Fleet
Street' in this dark and enthralling tale of love, obsession, murder
and ultimately redemption.
Life on the harsh streets of London in 1765 is not for the faint-hearted
and only the fittest survive. Living in the shadow of Newgate Prison,
Sweeney Todd tries to carve out a quiet and simple life as a barber.
Then, by chance, a sadistic gaoler who made Sweeney's childhood a
living hell comes in to his shop for a shave. Sweeney is repelled by
the presence of his former abuser, and realises he has a chance to
take revenge.
HOW WERE THEY CAUGHT?
• Sweeney todd and mrs lovett were eventually caught out
because one of the customers that had purchased a pie found a
toe nail in the pie which raised alarm bells. Causing them to ask
questions. They couldn’t make up a good enough lie so were
caught out.
THANKS FOR WATCHING