Sweeney Todd - rlsmart.net

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.

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