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Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street

Sweeney Todd is a character who first appeared as one of the protagonists of a penny dreadful serial entitled The String of Pearls (1846-1847). Claims that Sweeney Todd was a real person are strongly disputed by scholars, although there are possible legendary prototypes, arguably making the story of Sweeney Todd an example of an urban legend.

In the original version of the tale he is a barber who murders wealthy customers by pulling a lever while they are in his barber chair which, unknown to them, is fixed to a revolving trap-door, making them fall backward into the basement, generally causing them to break their necks or skulls as they hit the ground. Just in case they are alive, he goes to the basement and "polishes them off", meaning he slits their throats with a cut-throat razor. After Todd has robbed his dead victims of their goods, Mrs. Lovett, his partner in crime (in some later versions, his friend who wants to become his lover), assists him in disposing of the bodies by having their flesh baked into meat pies, and selling them to the unsuspecting customers of her pie shop. Todd's barber shop is situated at 186 Fleet Street, London, next to St. Dunstan's church, and is connected to Mrs. Lovett's pie shop in nearby Bell Yard by means of an underground passage

Later, the book was adapted for the stage and film by several different people. Stephen Sondheim's adaptaion is one of the more well-known versions. His1979 stage musical, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, 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 and whose real name is Benjamin Barker.

Benjamin Barker was a middle class barber, married to Lucy Barker with an infant daughter Johanna. The villainous and lecherous 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, completely transformed by his experiences: “That man is dead. It’s Todd now. Sweeney Todd.” Mrs. Lovett, a widow, owns the spectacularly unsuccessful meat pie shop below Todd’s old home. Mrs. Lovett recognizes her former neighbor and tells Todd that Lucy poisoned herself after Turpin raped her, and that Turpin adopted 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, Anthony, with whom she plans to elope.

In the Sondheim musical, Mrs. Lovett takes in an orphan boy, Tobias Ragg, after Sweeney kills Toby's previous master, Adolfo Pirelli, a former assistant of Todd who tries to blackmail Todd by revealing his true identify (it was a capital crime for a "lifer" to return to England). After Turpin 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. Mrs. Lovett's pie shop becomes incredibly successful.

In the musical's climactic scene, Todd finally kills Judge Turpin, as well as a deranged and purportedly old beggar woman — who turns out to be none other than Lucy, Todd's long-lost wife. When Mrs. Lovett confesses that she didn't tell him Lucy was still alive because she loves him, he throws her into the roaring bake oven. As Todd grieves over his wife's body, Toby, who has been driven insane after discovering the secret of the meat pies, sneaks up behind him and slashes Todd's throat with Todd's own razor. Todd dies with his wife's body in his arms.

The director Tim Burton later took this version and adapted it for film with Johnny Depp as Sweeney Todd and Helena Bonham Carter as Mrs. Lovett.

Name: Lucy Winchcomb
Guardian: Mary Winchcomb
Gender: Female
Age: ??

Personality:

There is a word that sums up Lucy, Pantophobic, or having a fear of everything. In Lucy’s mind, there is always a monster out to get her. While everything frightens her, there are some things that scare her more than others. For example, she is terribly frightened of men and would rather cower in a corner than be left alone in a room with one. She is also terrified of the dark and dark shadows. Lucy claims that the monsters get stronger in the darkness. She needs a source of light to be close to her at all times because of this.

Lucy never makes eye contact with anyone she doesn’t know very well. She fears that by looking in their eyes, she will be able to see the monsters that lurk within them. Everything, whether it is alive or not, has the potential of being a monster to little Lucy. This makes it hard for her to really open up to people, she doesn’t want to see the monsters inside them.

Due to all these fears, Lucy has a strong need to feel protected. If she finds some one she trusts and feels safe around, she will latch onto that person for as long as they will allow her to. She has a strong sense of loyalty to those who make her happy and safe and will do anything within her power to keep them happy as well.

Underneath all her fears and paranoia, Lucy has a very sweet soul. She likes making people happy and loves to sing little ditties while dancing around. Granted, she’s not the most coordinated of kids, so her dancing is more of a failing about. She also loves babies with a passion. The only time Lucy can be considered bold is when she sees a baby, she will just run up to it and ask to gently stroke it’s head.

Lucy doesn’t want to be frightened all the time, but she can’t help it. All she can do is hope that the people around her won’t eat her and that one day, there will be no more shadows for monsters to lurk in.

Dress:

Lucy has all the looks of a beautiful girl gone to seed. Her skin is sallow and unhealthy. She has wavy, long, stringy, dirty blond hair that falls to about mid-back level. Her eyes are a light honey brown that are always wide. Her dress is in true Victorian fashion, a dusty rose floor length gown with a fanned out skirt with a high neck bodice. Lucy always wears high-neck outfits to protect her throat. There is a long scar along the front half of her neck that she feels very self-conscience of. She doesn’t like the feeling of it being exposed. The dress is a little torn around the edges. She also wears a little pink bonnet on top her matted hair. She is on the skinny side, almost dangerously so and her skin seems a little stretched over her bones. This is mostly due to the stress her paranoia causes her. There are dark circles under her eyes from her many sleepless nights.

Quirks:
A fear of canned tomatoes that no one seems to understand, they're just tomatoes in a can! She also has a tendency to get obsessed about a single thing for long periods of time, like ponies or babies. She refuses to put a pair of pants, they itch and she also can't wear anything with pockets because pocket monsters live in them. More will appear in time, I'm sure.

Loves:
Ponies, Mary, babies, chocolate chip cookies, daytime and the sun, hats to protect her head from bad magic, books with lots of pictures, and drawing.

Dislikes:
Monsters, witches, ogres, goblins, spiders, snakes, heights, nighttime, shadows, thunder, lightning, oatmeal (she says it attracts monsters, but Mary thinks that Lucy just doesn't like oatmeal), new people who could be any of the above creatures and people thinking she's dumb

Writes in: mediumvioletred

Adam Winchcomb- The Loving Uncle
He's Mary's older brother with whom she shares a very intense bond with. He's an actor and possibly Mary's favorite person in the world. He lives for the spotlight and can be quite flamboyant and doesn't exactly know what personal boundaries are. He is very dramatic in every sense and would do anything to protect Mary. Even when he was disowned by their parents and Mary was traveling and experimenting with the world, they remained close.

Cassiopeia Palmer- The Carefree Cousin
Mary thinks that her cousin isn't fit to have a kid, but at the same time she hopes that having Cole will settle her down. (it doesn't seem to be working so far...) She is the type of person who loves to dance all night, meet a guy and wake up hungover the next afternoon and do it all again. Mary tries to keep Lucy away from her influence. She doesn't need a wild child on her hands!

Cole Palmer- The Moody Cousin
Cole's constant state of grumpiness is amusing to Mary. She especially loves his attachment to his violin. He's quite promising for some one so young. She is frightened that his harshness might frighten Lucy...

Peter Nielson- The Employee
While he's not a blood relative, he's always around and Mary feels attached to her only employee and his quirky way of being. She doesn't trust him with any fire inducing things though, that is one experience she would rather not repeat. His need to call her 'boss lady' will never cease to be funny. Lucy likes him because he's also afraid of the dark.

~Erik gave me a Mirror! A Special Mirror! It's got magical powers, and they aren't evil magical powers, but they'll let me talk to him whenever I want to 'cause it's like a phone, 'cept it's Magical! I made Muma make sure I could carry it everywhere so that it can protect me from monsters and witches, 'cause it makes Erik come and scare them away since he's kinda scary too.