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“ | There's a hole in the world like a great black pit/and it's filled with people who are filled with sh*t/and the vermin of the world inhabit it. | „ |
~ Sweeney Todd's nihilistic outlook on life. |
Sweeney Todd, formerly known as Benjamin Barker, is the titular main protagonist of the 1979 musical Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street and its 2007 Tim Burton film adaptation of the same name. He is a mentally unstable barber who desires to get revenge on the corrupt Judge Turpin for destroying his life and his family.
He was portrayed in the film by Johnny Depp, who also played John Shooter in Secret Window, John Dillinger in Public Enemies, a version of Tony Shepard in The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassuss, The Wolf in Into the Woods, Gellert Grindelwald in the first two Fantastic Beasts films and Lanfranco Cassetti in Murder on the Orient Express. In the Broadway musical, he was portrayed by George Hearn, who also voiced Dr. Preterius in Felidae, Ahab in The Pagemaster and Red in All Dogs Go to Heaven, Len Cariou, who also played Allard Bunker in Law & Order, and Michael Cerveris, who also played Professor Pyg in Gotham and Elihas Starr in Ant-Man and the Wasp.
Biography[]
Early life[]
He was originally Benjamin Barker, a talented barber who had a loving relationship with his wife Lucy, with whom he had an infant daughter, Johanna. However, a local judge named Turpin lusted after Lucy, and had Benjamin arrested on a false charge and sent away to Australia, then a British penal colony. Turpin invited Lucy to a formal party at his manor under the pretense of freeing Barker, but instead he overpowered and raped her. Filled with grief, Lucy poisoned herself with arsenic and subsequently went insane, while Turpin adopted Johanna as his ward.
In the play[]
Fifteen years later, Benjamin (going by the name Sweeney Todd) returns to London with the help of a merchant sailor Anthony Hope. He rents a room from his former landlady Mrs. Lovett, and opens a barbershop while biding his time to get revenge on Judge Turpin.
When Todd bests a con man named Adolfo Pirelli in a public display of shaving skill, Pirelli reveals that he is Todd's former assistant Davy Collins, and attempts to blackmail him into giving half of his profits, otherwise he would expose Todd's identity to Turpin's right-hand Beadle Bamford. In a rage, Todd kills Pirelli and hides his corpse in a trunk. Todd and Mrs. Lovett then took in a orphan named Tobias Ragg, who had been Pirelli's assistant.
Just then, Turpin comes in for a shave, wanting to look his best so as to marry Johanna. Just as Todd is about to slit the judge's throat, Anthony enters the shop announcing that he and Johanna are in love. An enraged Turpin leaves, ruining Todd's chance for revenge. Enraged, Todd vows to kill as many people as he can while waiting for another chance to kill Turpin, reasoning that he would be punishing the wicked and putting everyone else out of their misery. Mrs. Lovett, who owns an unsuccessful pie shop, gets the idea to bake the remains of Todd's victims into meat pies. Their plan is a success: Todd takes out his rage on dozens of customers, and Mrs. Lovett's pie shop becomes wildly successful selling pies secretly made of human flesh.
In the story's climax, Todd kills Bamford and lures the Judge back to his barber shop under the pretense of having persuaded Johanna to marry him. A beggar woman comes into the shop, and Todd kills her to keep her from getting in the way. He offers Turpin a free shave, reveals his true identity, and stabs Turpin to death, finally getting his revenge. In the meantime, Anthony manages to free Johanna from an asylum following the death of its owner Jonas Fogg.
When Todd goes to the bakehouse to help Mrs. Lovett dispose of the bodies, he discovers the beggar woman is actually Lucy. When he confronts Mrs. Lovett, she admits that she let him think Lucy was dead because Lovett is in love with him. Todd pretends to forgive her, then waltzes Lovett over towards her large pie oven, where he throws her into the fire. Tobias, who had come to love Mrs. Lovett like a mother, comes up from behind a resigned Todd and slits his throat, leaving Todd to bleed to death over his wife's corpse.
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Villains | ||
The String of Pearls Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street TODD by King and Jester |