Background

Sweeney Todd the Demon Barber of Fleet Street came about almost by accident. Sondheim, in London to supervise a production of Follies in 1973, decided to take in an evening at the theatre and ended up watching a Christopher Bond play: Sweeney Todd, written for the Stoke Experimental theatre company.

So impressed was Sondheim with the production that he decided to try and convert it into a musical. With Bond’s permission he embarked on the six year journey that would eventually see the production arrive in Broadway, at the Uris Theatre on 1st March 1979, starring Angela Lansbury and Len Cariou.

Sondheim’s score to Sweeney is one of his most complex to date, considered by many to be an English language opera. He relies heavily on counterpoint and rich, ‘angular’ harmonies in the show. Sondheim quotes the ancient Dies Irae Gregorian chant as part of the eponymous ballad that runs throughout the score.

Although Sondheim always denied any Brechtian influence on his work, Bond’s original script was actually devised by combining a renamed version of Brecht’s Man is Man, with an 1847 one act folk play by playwright George Dibdin Pitt based on a story called The String of Pearls: A Romance, which had appeared in one of the notorious Penny Dreadfuls, called The People’s Periodical, issue 7, 21st November 1846. It was probably written by Thomas Prest, who tended to base his gruesome villains and horror stories on grains of truth, sometimes gaining inspiration from real crime reports in The Times. Pitt’s play opened at the Hoxton Theatre with the subtitle The Fiend of Fleet Street and was billed as ‘founded on fact’. It was something of a success, and the story spread by word of mouth taking on the quality of an urban legend.

Although the story of Sweeney Todd is sometimes claimed to be based upon fact, no reliable evidence of this has ever been found.Todd’s trial at the Old Bailey and subsequent hanging at Tyburn in January 1802, before a large crowd, have no record in the Old Bailey sessions papers or the Newgate Calendar, nor are there any contemporary press reports.

There is thought to have been a Jacobin barber who cut the throats of his customers during the French Revolution, though for politics rather than profit. Likewise, the 15th century Scottish figure Sawney Bean led a family of thieves who are believed to have feasted on their victims. It may be relevant that ‘Sweeney’ could be considered a typically Irish name, just as ‘Sawney’ is a Scottish one; ethnic prejudice could underly both legends.

The one notable difference between any early version of Sweeney Todd and the Bond/Wheeler/Sondheim collaboration, is that Sweeney himself is given a sense of pathos. Whereas before he had merely been a figure of evil, perpetrating his murderous acts out of greed or thirst for blood, this Todd is the victim of a rapacious upper-class who will stop at nothing to get what they want. By blurring the lines between black and white; good and evil, Bond and, ultimately, Sondheim have created a parable for the modern age and a gripping story which will keep you on the edge of your seat right up until the final curtain.

Performance Details

Sweeney Todd was performed at the Compass Theatre in Ickenham from Wednesday 22nd to Saturday 25th of November 2006. Shows were at 8pm.