Dark Truth About Sweeney Todd

Summary

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Podcast Summary: After Dark – Myths, Misdeeds & the Paranormal

Episode: Dark Truth About Sweeney Todd

Release Date: December 22, 2025
Hosts: Anthony Delaney & Maddy Pelling

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Episode Overview

This episode delves into the origins, development, and historical context of the infamous urban legend of Sweeney Todd—the Demon Barber of Fleet Street. Anthony and Maddy examine the real anxieties that fueled this penny dreadful sensation, separate fact from fiction, and track how this grisly tale evolved from oral tradition to musical phenomenon. The discussion covers Victorian London's atmosphere, the penny dreadful publishing craze, anxieties around urbanization and food, and the legend’s journey through different cultures and adaptations.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

Setting the Scene: Victorian London & the Appetite for Gruesome Tales

[01:46 – 04:21] Maddy evokes a vivid, atmospheric introduction to London's shadowy 1840s, highlighting the public's hunger for crime stories and sensational fiction.

• Victorian London as a place of "shadows, packed slums, grinding poverty," and a "public hungry for blood-soaked tales."
• Crime broadsides and stories of murder, cannibalism, and vice were rampant.
  Quote (03:10):

"A tale born from fear, sharpened by sensationalism, and fed by the city's darkest instincts. This is the story that shaped the legend." — Maddy

The Print Boom & The Rise of the Penny Dreadful

[05:58 – 08:35]

• Explosion of cheap print media, making stories accessible to the lower and middling classes.
• Literacy Rates:
  • Men: ~60–70% (based on ability to write one’s name).
  • Women: ~50–60%.
• Oral storytelling and communal reading experiences: fiction being read aloud at homes and pubs.
• Penny Dreadfuls, also called "Penny Horrible," "Penny Awful," or "Penny Blood"—serial publications designed to shock and entertain.
  Quote (10:00):

"They're really pulpy, a bit trashy... leaning into this interest in crime in particular." — Maddie

Urban Anxieties & The Fear of Strangers

[12:51 – 13:21]

• Urbanization led to fears of anonymity, the unknown, and crime amidst strangers.
• Stories often played upon not knowing neighbors or even roommates in dense city environments.

The Original Sweeney Todd: "The String of Pearls"

[13:39 – 17:24]

• First published 1846–1847 as a penny dreadful called "The String of Pearls," later as a book in 1850.
• Set in 1785, not Victorian-era as commonly assumed.
• Key plot points:
  • Lieutenant Thornhill carries a "string of pearls" for a colonel’s lover, Joanna Oakley.
  • Thornhill is murdered by Sweeney Todd; his body disappears via a trapdoor to Mrs. Lovett's pie shop.
  • Joanna, more proactive than her later musical counterpart, investigates undercover by dressing as a boy.
  • Human remains found in pies; Todd is caught and executed, Mrs. Lovett dies (varied versions).
  • The story offers a grisly mix of murder, cannibalism, and the dark underbelly of urban life. Quote (16:29):

"This is the Johanna we needed in the musical. And she goes to investigate. She dresses up as a boy." — Maddie

19th-Century Urban Spaces: Barbershops & Pie Shops

[19:59 – 25:55]

• Barbershops and pie shops were everyday, ubiquitous spaces, making the horror plausible for contemporary readers.
• Barbers performed surgical procedures (teeth removal, repairs) as well as grooming.
• Pie shops and street vendors were everywhere, catering to those without means to cook at home.
• Food adulteration was rampant—unknown meats, preservatives, even narcotics in beer. Quote (25:47):

"If you're getting one off a street trader... When did the animal that's inside this die? Is it one animal or is this several animals? There's no regulation." — Maddie

Historical Precedents & Transnational Legends

[27:39 – 32:15]

• Sweeney Todd legend echoes older European stories:
  • 14th-century Paris: a barber and pastry shop duo preying on customers (no hard evidence).
  • England: "The Bloody Barber of Bishopsgate" (17th-century ballad); bones found in St. Giles pie shop, leading to slang about dubious meat.
  • Germany: Tale of a baker using dead soldiers for pies during wartime famines.
  • Italy: The "Barbieri assassini" of Venice/Bologna (16th–17th c.): murderous barbers robbing and sometimes disposing of customers via trapdoor.
• The barber as a figure of danger—combining surgery and shaving with sharp razors. Quote (28:56):

"The idea is that he lures the customers in, he shaves them, cuts their throats, drops them down a trap door. ... And that he's then making the pies with the meat—which apparently the Parisians, they can't get enough of it." — Maddie

Why Sweeney Todd Resonated: Victorian Social Fears

[34:14 – 36:53]

• Urbanization, anonymity, dangers of public spaces—Victorians projected their fears onto these tales.
• Emphasis on lower and middling class protagonists—readers could easily imagine themselves in similar peril.
• The story exploited contemporary anxieties about food safety, social change, and the breakdown of familiar communities. Quote (34:37):

"This idea that anyone was a stranger, you couldn’t necessarily trust anyone... every closed door that you are not party to." — Maddie

Evolution from Serial to Stage & Screen

[37:49 – 39:20]

• Post-String of Pearls, the story quickly adapted for stage (George Dibdin’s 1847 version) and later productions incorporating humor, shock, and ever more grotesque stage effects.
• The character of Sweeney Todd became increasingly nuanced:
  • 1973: Christopher Bond play gives Todd a tragic backstory.
  • 1979: Sondheim & Wheeler’s iconic musical (roots in 1970s reimaginings).
  • 2007: Tim Burton’s film adaptation remixes previous versions. Quote (39:20):

"Then you start to get stage versions that add in humour, which is a little bit of what we see with the musical that we have inherited now, where Mrs. Lovett becomes a more central character..." — Maddie

Personal Anecdotes & Final Thoughts

[39:20 – 41:34]

• Anthony reveals background in musical theater; both hosts discuss favorite roles and reminisce about musicals of the 2000s era.
• They reflect on how researching Sweeney Todd reveals much about how Victorian popular culture processed urban anxieties, entertained itself, and created enduring myths.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Setting the chilling tone:

  "The barber's hands are practiced, almost tender as he lathers the client's throat. But then comes the razor, gleaming, honed to a terrifying edge ... In that instant, every whispered fear of Victorian London rushes in." — Maddie (01:46)

• On communal Victorian reading habits:

  "Most people are reading out loud to family members, to people in the pub, to friends at work, that kind of thing." — Maddie (07:30)

• Revealing the dark humor in food fears:

  "Charles Dickens joked about pies containing mystery meats so often it wouldn't really be identifiable what you eat." — Maddie (25:05)

• On the repeated anxieties behind the legend:

  "It speaks to the anxiety of going to a barber shop. ... This is a barber who might, you know, aid you in the cutting off of a limb as well as tooth extraction, etc." — Maddie (31:09)

• Summing up Sweeney Todd’s historical roots:

  “It’s a really interesting way to consume that history and bring a bit of history to that folk tale, that horror tale.” — Anthony (41:34)

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Important Segment Timestamps

• Vivid scene-setting introduction: [01:46–04:21]
• Penny Dreadfuls and publishing boom: [05:58–12:53]
• String of Pearls plot breakdown: [13:39–17:24]
• Sweeney Todd’s European precursors: [27:39–32:15]
• Urban fears in Victorian society: [34:14–36:53]
• Stage & musical adaptations: [37:49–39:20]
• Personal reflections & episode wrap-up: [39:20–41:34]

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Tone and Style

The hosts keep a lively, conversational, and occasionally irreverent tone, filled with playful banter, theatrical asides, and contemporary references to musicals and pop culture. Maddy takes the lead on historical context and narrative summaries, whereas Anthony interjects with humor, reactions, and stage anecdotes. The effect is both deeply informative and entertaining—ideal for fans of history, folklore, and dark tales.

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For listeners intrigued by the intersection of urban legend, pop culture, and gritty history, this episode is a playful but insightful deep-dive into why the Sweeney Todd myth refuses to die.

Transcript

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[Maddie]

The bell above the door jangles as a gentleman steps inside, the warm, steamy air of the barber shop closing around him like a cloak. The room smells of bay rum and singed hair, the quiet scrape of steel on leather, the only sound. The barber doesn't speak as he gestures the man into the chair, just fixes him with a steady, unreadable look. The client sits, feeling the cracked leather sigh beneath him and tilting his chin as instructed. The barber's hands are practiced, almost tender as he lathers the client's throat. But then comes the razor, gleaming, honed to a terrifying edge that catches the gas lamp light. It hovers, then touches skin. In that instant, every whispered fear of Victorian London rushes in. Vanishings, rumors, and the legend of a barber who never meant for his customers to walk out again. London in the 1840s was a city of shadows, packed slums green, grinding poverty, and a public hungry for blood soaked tales. Crime broadside sold like hot pies, splashing streets with lurid stories of murder, cannibalism and vice. Into this world stepped Sweeney Todd, the demonic barber who slit throats for profit and sent bodies tumbling below. A tale born from fear, sharpened by some sensationalism and fed by the city's darkest instincts. This is the story that shaped the legend, the real anxieties, brutal realities, and gory imagination that made Sweeney Todd impossible to forget. From the basement of a barber shop. This is after D.

[Anthony]

Hello, I'm Anthony.

[Maddie]

And I'm Maddie.

[Anthony]

And this is a tale that we know most likely from a film or a musical, which we are not allowed.

[Maddie]

To sing for licensing reasons.

[Anthony]

Well, I wasn't going to, but are we not allowed to for that?

[Maddie]

I don't think.

[Anthony]

Oh, you just made it up.

[Maddie]

No, I think you are not allowed to sing it unless you are doing a review of it.

[Anthony]

Okay. It's a very good musical. Attend the tale of Sweeney Todd. Sweeney Todd is what we're doing. And it is a very good musical, actually. The demon barber of Fleet Street. But is there a chilling original history behind this story? What are the fears of the time that made this story a sensation? And what pies are really made? Wait, and were pies really that popular? I mean, I'm going to say yes to that. I don't know anything about this. This is your episode.

[Maddie]

It's not a pie. Do you like a pie?

[Royal Match Promoter]

No.

[Maddie]

No. Not even like a chicken pie on a Sunday?

[Anthony]

If I had to do a pie, it would be a chicken pie.

[Maddie]

I'd make a mean chicken pie. That's like my go to, like, cosy comfort.

[Anthony]

And you know, I'm married to a northerner, so he loves a pie. But no, it's not for me.

[Maddie]

Shane does not speak like that.

[Anthony]

No. Well, he doesn't, actually.

[Maddie]

Maybe he does at home.

[Anthony]

No, no, he doesn't.

[Royal Match Promoter]

Why?

[Anthony]

It'd be so funny if he was putting on more of it. Anyway, look, this, we have a lot to get through. Give me. We're in the 1840s.

[Maddie]

Can I just say, before we went on air, I was like, anthony, so much information in this. You need to keep me on track.

[Anthony]

And that already you need to all.

[Maddie]

Spot the amounts of times I like that tells me to shut off a movie.

[Anthony]

And also how unsubtle I am with it. Stop in the middle of a sentence and keep moving. And we still haven't moved. It says the 1840s, but that musical did not come out in the 1840s. But I presume we're talking about the actual original story.

[Maddie]

We are talking about the original story. So we're in the 1840s slash the 1850s. Okay. This is real time. This is an age. As you all know, Dr. Anthony Delaney of cheap print media, when reading. Of smoking.

[Anthony]

No, usually when people call me Dr. Anthony Delaney, they're taking a piss or something. Well, which you were actually.

[Maddie]

So, yes, I mean, you did earn it. So there's a kind of explosion in print media where it becomes more popular with the middling and the lower classes, the working classes. People are consuming news, but also stories, fiction, like never before. Things are being churned out. We're going to talk about some of those publications and what they might look like in a little bit. But reading aloud is also becoming popular. So literacy rates in 1840s England are increasing. There is a gender literacy rate. Surprise, surprise. So for men, it's about 60 or 70% of the population. The male population.

[Anthony]

Wow.

[Maddie]

Higher than I would have thought. Now I will say the test of literacy.

[Anthony]

Sign your name or something, is being.

[Maddie]

Able to write your own name.

[Anthony]

Okay, so it might go no further than that.

[Maddie]

Yeah, exactly. You might not be sat down reading like the. The full works of Shakespeare. You might be. And good for you. For women it was about 50 or 60%, which is still like relatively, when you think about the 18th century, just a few decades earlier, like, this is an increase. Right, yeah, we've moved on, but within the kind of nuance of that maybe not everybody is sitting down, as we would maybe do now, to personally read.

[Anthony]

A book, consume this literature in our heads.

[Maddie]

Most people are reading out loud to family members, to people in the pub, to friends at work, that kind of thing. So the kind of texts that are making their way into the hands of the working and the middling classes are things that are quick and easy to read, that are gripping, that can be read aloud and will be exciting and can almost act it out, which I think is fascinating. Also, cheap print media in this time as well. It is not only spreading stories, but it is also spreading political ideas amongst the working classes. They're getting ideas above their station. The Chartist movement, which we've covered before when we spoke about machine breaking in the industrial north, is, you know, kind of mass working class campaign across Britain to demand political reform and in particular votes for men and workers rights and that kind of thing. And all of this is sort of the world is changing. People are telling more stories. They're telling stories about their aspirations, where they want to be, their anxieties. Everything in this new Victorian era. And we are very new into the Victorian era. Only a few years in is being worked out in print, and you can see that happening in real time.

[Anthony]

So you talked about this kind of sharing orally written word stories in taverns or at home, around the fireside.

[Maddie]

Enough. Not. You and I. We spend time talking aloud, if anything. Yeah, we're keeping it going, but I wish more people would do that. Like, do you ever read out loud 21?

[Anthony]

Christ, no. Well, maybe my nephews when they were babies.

[Maddie]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm gonna have to do a lot of baby reading out loud. But I do insist on reading out loud ghost stories at Christmas to my family. I do do that. And everyone's like, I know Maddie's the one.

[Anthony]

I know Maddie's dad listens to this. And I can tell you now I'm speaking for him when he's like, this woman will not stop reading her.

[Maddie]

It's my sister who really, really hates it. She's like, no, no, thank you. It's not for me.

[Anthony]

I love that. I love when people are not biking.

[Maddie]

Sit down by the fire.

[Anthony]

But I equally love that you force it.

[Maddie]

I force it.

[Anthony]

Yeah.

[Maddie]

Yeah.

[Anthony]

So I'm here for it.

[Maddie]

I'm the eldest sibling. Everyone has to listen to me.

[Anthony]

But one of the things that does help facilitate this kind of group imagination sharing of literature is the penny dreadful.

[Maddie]

Sometimes called the Penny Horrible, the Penny Awful, or the Penny Blood.

[Anthony]

I like all of those names adore. But tell us what that is.

[Maddie]

That is the baby name of choice.

[Anthony]

What? Penny Blood.

[Maddie]

Can you imagine? Penny Awful.

[Anthony]

Penny Blood's better, but we're not calling it that. Maddie, come on. We've loads to do. Okay, so what is a Penny Dreadful?

[Maddie]

If you're doing the drinking game of Anthony, moving Maddie along while she chats.

[Anthony]

Take a sip.

[Maddie]

Okay, so the Penny Dreadful Slash Horrible, Slash Blood is a serial publication. It's published weekly. It has anywhere between 8 to 16 pages. Good maths. That's like a double volume, I guess, sometimes. Well done, me. Cost about a penny, so it's very affordable for the language. Clue's in the title, yeah, Clue is in the title, yeah. Oh, my gosh. You could buy it from street sellers, bookshops, markets and train stations. Importantly, maybe not to begin with in the 1840s, but certainly as we go through the Victorian era. And it says so much about the sort of the cheap disposability of this, I suppose this is like rapid. Like, I need some entertainment. Like now you just put in a podcast of choice into your ears on the tube, but you'd be reading the Penny Dreadful if this was the Victorian era. They are really kind of pulpy, a bit trashy. They're leaning into this interest in crime in particular and mystery and murder that happens. So we've spoken so much in this podcast before about things like the Police Illustrated News in this period, which, you know, was kind of a more serious publication compared to the Penny Dreadful, but would have the illustrations on the front of real crime scenes and, you know, sort of things that had happened around the city. And so this genre is leaning into that. It's fictionalizing things. It is borrowing heavily from stuff that's really happening. Right. Like, this is very much like, ooh, someone got horribly, brutally murdered over there. Did they?

[Anthony]

Just sounds like we'll put that in.

[Maddie]

Some characters in around this, you know, and it's beloved of people across the classes across Britain.

[Anthony]

I would have been reading this without a shadow of a doubt. I would have been grabbing penny dreadfuls as I was going on trains and all kinds of. Oh, I think so, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think. I think they would have been.

[Maddie]

I'm always really interested as well, in this moment of, you know, we think of some of the biggest writers of the time in the 19th century. I'm thinking in particular of Charles Dickens. Other female writers are available, but I'm thinking in terms of, like, that serialization and the sort of rapidity with which things are churned out and produced of varying quality. I'm not necessarily comparing Charles Dickens' to the writer of Penny Dreadful, but there's so much kind of fizzing creativity in this moment of, like, quick, let's get these stories out here. We have to get people engaged and excited and that is what you see happening here. It also, I will say, the Penny Dreadful in particular, leans into fears around in London specifically, and I suppose other industrial towns and cities as they get bigger in the north as well. This idea of urbanisation bringing with it strangeness that you are a stranger to the person you pass in the street, that no longer are you part of a community or a parish. You don't necessarily know your neighbours. If you're in the lower classes living in London, you don't necessarily know the person you're renting rooms off. You don't even know the person who's sleeping in the same room as you, potentially.

[Anthony]

Room, bed, even yeah, yeah, exactly.

[Maddie]

And so there's this kind of fear of strangers, foreigners within that, of course, playing into that as well. But just this idea of not knowing who it is that you are dealing with on a day to day basis and the danger of that.

[Anthony]

One of the things that I'm intrigued about in this particular episode is we are bearing in mind that this is a moment in time which you've set up really clearly, but then we introduce this fictional element which sometimes we struggle with on After Dark. Right. Because we're just like, well, why are we bringing in something that didn't really happen?

[Maddie]

No, yeah. I will say when. When the producers came to us and said, do you want to do an episode on Sweeney Todd? After several rounds of singing, it's like, is there a history, though?

[Anthony]

Yeah, I remember you asking. But before we get into a bit more of the history, tell me what the original story was.

[Maddie]

Yeah, so the original story was published in a penny dreadful and it's called the String of Pearls.

[Anthony]

Oh, God. I didn't expect you to say the String of Pearls. What's that got to do with anything?

[Maddie]

Well, wait and see. There are some characters in here that you will recognize if you have seen the musical or you've seen The Tim Burton, what, 2007 adaptation of the musical, which. I dunno.

[Anthony]

Oh, yeah, yeah. Somewhere around then. Well done.

[Maddie]

Yeah.

[Anthony]

Is that in your notes?

[Maddie]

I think it probably is. It's not the ones that I'm looking at, but, you know, I feel like it's lodged. Okay. So the String of Pearls was serialized and it came out in these episodes from November 1846 through to March 1847. Perfect Spooky Season publication timeline there. Well done. It was eventually all put together and published as a book in 1850 because it was so popular. Okay. It's set in 1785, which I think is really interesting because obviously we think of Sweeney Todd as this like high Victorian Gothic, quite camp gory story. And actually we have an 18th century setting. It's set in the foggy, grim and damp Fleet street in London.

[Anthony]

Okay, so that's the same.

[Maddie]

It's the same, yeah. The demon barber of Fleet Street. So check. However, enter a character that we don't necessarily. I don't think we meet him in the musical. I don't think he's in here. Lieutenant Thornhill.

[Anthony]

No idea.

[Maddie]

So he is an army lieutenant. He is wandering around London and he decides he needs a shave.

[Anthony]

Okay.

[Maddie]

So he goes into the barbershop of one Mr. Sweeney Todd.

[Royal Match Promoter]

Right.

[Maddie]

A character we recognise Now, Thornhill, through a series of events, is carrying with him a string of pearls on behalf of someone else he has served with called Colonel Geoffrey. Now, Colonel Geoffrey, presumably has died or has asked Thornhill to bring the pearls. And the pearls are meant for the Colonel's lover, who is a character called Joanna Oakley.

[Anthony]

Joanna. Yeah. The best song in the entire musical. Let's accept that.

[Maddie]

And also. Right. Joanna in the musical does nothing. There's all the metaphors of her being a little trapped bird in a cage. Passive, passive, passive. I'm just cute and beautiful and with a little squeaky voice, waiting to be rescued. Not Johanna in this story.

[Anthony]

Oh, okay. Go on.

[Maddie]

So Thornhill goes in, has his shave.

[Anthony]

Oh, he gets killed in that one.

[Maddie]

He gets killed. And Sweeney Todd puts him through the secret trap door down to Mrs. Lovett's pie shop.

[Anthony]

Oh, so that's even there.

[Maddie]

We do have this. We do have this. And the way that it's set up in the serialized story is Todd's secret that he has the trapdoor going into the pie shop is set up really early on. It's really obvious to the reader, but not to the characters. So you can imagine people reading the story out loud and you're shouting, no, don't sit in the chair. But so Thornhill disappears. The lieutenant with the string of pearls, Joanna takes it upon herself to investigate. She dresses up as a boy.

[Anthony]

Good girl, Joanna.

[Maddie]

I know. Like, this is the Johanna we needed in the musical. And she goes to investigate. Now, Joanna and Colonel Geoffrey, who sort of comes back into the story somehow.

[Anthony]

And they're lovers, Right?

[Maddie]

They're lovers. They make the connection with Mrs. Lovett in the pie shop below because they hear rumours that she never gets a single meat delivery. Okay, that's the best song. The one about putting pussycats in pies that she.

[Anthony]

The Mrs. Lovettng.

[Maddie]

Yeah. So good. They investigate the premises of the pie shop and they find, lo and behold, human remains. Sweeney Todd tries to flee. Mrs. Lovett dies. In some versions, she's poisoned. She poisons herself. In other versions. Yeah, it's a suicide. Sweeney Todd, though, is captured and he confesses and he is executed. And in true Penny Dreadful style, you have to have a little bit of. So Joanna and Jeffrey, the Colonel are reunited. So presumably she gets to put the pearl. Pearls on.

[Anthony]

I was gonna say, where the hell did the pearls.

[Maddie]

Yeah, exactly.

[Anthony]

I presumed the pearls were going to be like. And they found the pearls in a pie or something.

[Maddie]

Yeah, foreign.

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[Maddie]

So we have an image which was the original page one from the 1850 book version of the story and I would like you to describe it because I think it's a recognizable scene of the Sweeney Todd that we know and love.

[Anthony]

Interesting actually. So there is a man. Well first of all it's called the barber's lesson to his apprentice and there is a man at the center of the image in an actually very gothicied looking chair and he's dressed out of all the time periods that we have discussed. We've said 1785. We've said 1850. He looks like he's from the 1820s or something. But anyway, look, that's neither here nor there.

[Maddie]

This artist is making it up as they go along.

[Anthony]

But he's sitting down, he's splayed in his seat, he's got like a claw like hand holding onto one of the arms of the chair. But he is also looking at a young boy on the right hand side.

[Maddie]

Well, is it Joanna?

[Anthony]

Initially I thought it was Joanna. I did think that. But anyway, it's an apprentice is supposed to be. And he's essentially saying, shut your mouth. There. Now you don't be saying anything about me killing people. And then in the background, there's kind of all the barbary stuff laid out on a little. What's that called?

[Maddie]

Like a little dresser.

[Anthony]

Dresser. There you go.

[Maddie]

Well, we'll talk a little bit as well about the barber shop in this moment. The barber surgeon of centuries past. You know, you think of the red and white swirly baton outside the shop that people still have, and that's meant to represent bandages and blood. And that the barber was someone who would do things like teeth removal, maybe cut a limb or two off for you if necessary. Might have served in the military, but by this period. And we can see this in the image, you know, it's very much like you're shaving, you're cutting people's hair, you're making wigs as well. Interesting.

[Anthony]

Yes. I'm always very fascinated about wigs and wig making in, well, in the 18th century, more so. By the way, that's Tobias, you know, that little boy. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Maddie]

He's sweet in the musical. I like him anyway.

[Anthony]

Sorry.

[Maddie]

He's better than. Who's the kid in Les Mis? He's so annoying. And when he dies, it's like, thank.

[Anthony]

God, Gavroche or whatever.

[Maddie]

Like, that's always the best bit of the musical when he's shocked.

[Anthony]

Bye, Gavroche.

[Maddie]

Bye. Wow.

[Anthony]

Okay. But you're talking about this barbershop and you're talking about the function it has within the society, within this world, but all of these places. I'm always fascinated by this. Actually. I was in this kind of 19th century reproduction bar yesterday which was called Mr. Foggs. It's near St. Martin's Lane. It's very Instagram friendly. I was not there for those reasons, but it's actually very immersive. It's actually, it's interesting. But what it did make me think was functionality of these places as opposed to just, I'm going There for my Sunday lunch, which I did. There were more reasons to go to these places in the late 18th, early 19th century. They were really more hubby than we understand them to be now.

[Maddie]

Yeah, People's consumption of food and drink and services like the barbershop were completely different as they were now. So, for example, I don't know, did you wake up and have a shave.

[Anthony]

This morning last night?

[Maddie]

Pretty fresh face?

[Anthony]

I did.

[Maddie]

So you wouldn't have done that in the 19th century. You would have got up this morning and gone to a barbershop before coming to work. That would be a normal thing. You would, you know, and you might have your shoes shined on the way as well. Although you do have trainers, they don't currently require shining. But you know, there's sort of services like that that were very much kind of, you know, lining the streets and the thoroughfares that people were traversing every day and that you would just pop into them as and when you needed them. It's not so much, you know, if you want to go to the hairdressers now and you make an appointment way in advance, you could probably just walk in and do that. There's a lot of spaces though that come up in this story that I just think are so interesting. Cause it says so much about, I suppose, lower and middling experiences in the society. And these are all spaces in this story that everyone reading these stories aloud, hearing them read aloud, would recognise. So, yes, we have the barbershop, which was a predominantly male dominated space, by the way. Women didn't necessarily go to hairdressers in the same way. They might cut their hair at home, especially in the lower classes, as we've said. It would do things like shaving hair, cutting, tooth extraction. Just went in to get a quick shave and now you've got no teeth. Things like hair oil, perfumes, wax, that kind of thing. So you could kind of come out being pretty preened and zhuzhed. The pie shop as well, thinking about Mrs. Lovett's pie shop. So these were everywhere. These are like your pretzel, your Costas, basically. Although not to say that they are serving human fun.

[Anthony]

No, no, no. Yeah, allegedly. Not even. Allegedly. So, okay, that's interesting that they are that on the go in grabbing this thing.

[Maddie]

Yes, very much so. These could either be a fixed location, like an actual shop that you walk into, but they could also be street traders that have little, you know, they're just pushing along a wheelbarrow full of pies they've cooked at home. Or something like that. You get night stalls as well. So you get. You get a pie in London pretty much at any time of night or day. And these were meals for people who, back in their own lodgings, did not have room to cook, did not have opportunity. You know, maybe I'm thinking if you're a single man and you're not going home to a family scenario, you're going home to a lodging house and your bed and board doesn't include a dinner, an evening meal or something like that. In 1851, there were between five and 700 pie shops that were fixed locations and a thousand street traders. So they really are everywhere. What could you get inside them, I hear you ask.

[Anthony]

Well, what could you get inside them, Maddie?

[Maddie]

A variety of meats.

[Anthony]

Variety.

[Maddie]

Mutton. Beef. Sounds vaguely acceptable. Rabbit? Not so keen. Eel. No, we know Anthony's eaten eel before on our live show. Would you repeat that experience? Especially not with pastry. That's not the one. No. I don't want to know the texture of that. With pastry. No. Thank you. Charles Dickens, talking of, joked about pies containing mystery meats so often it wouldn't really be identifiable what you eat.

[Anthony]

It's a dog.

[Maddie]

Yeah. And obviously think about just the hygiene levels and you. If you're getting one off a street trader. When was this pie cooked? When did the animal that's inside this die? Is it one animal or is this several animals? What's going on? There's no regulation.

[Anthony]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know. It doesn't bear thinking about, does it? I mean, I mean, haven't we had something recently ourselves where something was horse.

[Maddie]

Meat, like a few years ago?

[Anthony]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Maddie]

There was. Well, so this, now, this is a really important thing that was kind of legislated against in the 19th century, because this really was an issue, right, that you would get these meats where you couldn't identify them and people would often purposefully alter the food. So there were lots of alteration scandals. So in the 1850s, people were putting alum in flour and also they were using unknown meats and things. Also putting narcotics in beer. Oh. Which is like.

[Anthony]

There wasn't enough there already.

[Maddie]

Exactly. Like give the people of London a chance.

[Anthony]

I don't like it. That's all a bit messy for me.

[Maddie]

Yeah, it's not great. There was a book even published in the 1820s called the Mysteries of Adulteration. So this was a really big thing. And by 1860, there was an Adulteration of Food and Drink act that made it illegal to knowingly alter foods so to augment them with, like, things or to add in extra stuff. But 1860 is quite late. So for, you know, the first few decades of the Victorian era, and Certainly of the 19th century, people are just eating whatever is put in front of them.

[Anthony]

If you're in North America and you listen to this, isn't your beef being injected and isn't your. All that kind of stuff?

[Maddie]

Like, I was doing a recipe the other day, and it was an American recipe for some chicken, and it said to dry your chicken beforehand. I was like, why is it it wet?

[Anthony]

Why is it wet?

[Maddie]

Why is it wet?

[Anthony]

What the hell is a wet chicken?

[Maddie]

Write in and tell me why your chicken is so wet. I don't understand.

[Anthony]

One thing I want to know amidst all this discussion of wet chickens is often these people. You know, we've talked about Dracula in terms of our literature thing, and there's. There's a real person behind it, even if it's, again, Victorian, but they're. They're looking to another time or another place or another country, whatever that has inspired this figure. Is there a Sweeney Todd?

[Maddie]

There are several potential Sweeney Todds from different periods in history. Okay, so I'm gonna give you a few of them. One of the sort of main contenders, let's say, is actually not from London at all, but from gay Paris.

[Anthony]

Oh, yeah.

[Maddie]

In the 14th century. So probably not quite so gay in the 14th century. Probably more grimy. And death. Now, he supposedly lived on the Rue de Marmoset. Excellent pronunciation. Marmoset.

[Anthony]

Yeah.

[Maddie]

No, I'm just saying I don't know why this street is, but it is still a small street near to Notre Dame. So it still exists. There's no real proof that he ever existed.

[Anthony]

Ah, for God's sake. I hate shit like that.

[Maddie]

Yeah, I know, it's so frustrating. But I will say, from the 17th century onwards, we do see him appearing in different French chronicles. He's a barber who is connected to a pastry shop.

[Anthony]

Ah, sir, look.

[Maddie]

Yeah. And the idea is that he lures the customers in, he shaves them, cuts their throats, drops them down a trap door. So we do have that. And that he's then making the pies with the meat, which apparently the Parisians, they can't get enough of it, not realizing what it is. They think it's fantastic.

[Anthony]

Well, that's definitely the origins of this story. Even if it's itself only a story.

[Maddie]

It's the origins, I would say. Well, maybe it's an example of a trope that continues throughout, even if it's not the origins. There are other versions.

[Anthony]

Go on.

[Maddie]

Right, so in Britain, in England, we do have two different versions. There's a late 17th century broadside ballad called the Bloody Barber of Bishopgate, which got a lofty alliteration of the 17th century. And he is meant to be. You know, this is kind of circulated in cheap print again for sort of popular consumption. And this is a song about someone who lures the customers, cuts their throats, hides the bodies and they are discovered by accident. There's no claim in that one of him making them into pies, however, in the 19th century. So closer to the early 19th century, this is like. But we are getting closer to the actual Sweeney Todd era. There was a pie man of St. Giles and there were bones found in the cellar of this pie maker's shop. And the rumours at the time were that some of the bones were human. And this became kind of slang. And if you had a St. Giles pie, it basically meant a pie with anything in it. You didn't know what it was. So it was kind of. It was that shorthand. This food's a bit dodge, basically. There are other examples from across Europe. Get ready for some German pronunciation. Oh, God. So there's a German story called Dementschenfressenbache. You're welcome.

[Anthony]

I can't tell you one way or the other how good or bad that is.

[Maddie]

I'm guessing bad. I have none. And this is an 18th and 19th century folk tale about a baker who, during wartime shortages, uses dead soldiers to put in his pies. Which, you know, we're thinking, that sounds far fetched, but you gotta think about the battlefield at Waterloo.

[Anthony]

How does that feed into this? Somebody eaten people?

[Maddie]

No, but their bodies were kind of cannibalized in other ways. They weren't consumed, as far as we know, by human beings, but their teeth were taken to make those teeth.

[Anthony]

I'm with you.

[Maddie]

They were, I think, weren't they kind of boiled down to make agricultural manure and things like that. A lot of the bodies. Because if you look at the battlefield now, there's hardly any archaeological record of the actual bodies of that battle on that field, because so many of them were taken away and used in certain ways. So, you know, that was a thing. One more is the Barbieri assassini. Apologies to my Italian cousins out there, who.

[Anthony]

I know one of them actually have Italian cousins.

[Maddie]

Yeah. And I know one of them does. Listen to this. And he's probably not anymore. He'll be gesticulating in Italian to me right now. This Was a murderous barber in 16th and 17th century Venice or Bologna, depending on the story that's being told. And again, he slits throats, he robs the customers. He kills foreigners when they come in for a shave. In some versions, there's a trapdoor where he gets rid of them. There's no pie shop, though, in this one. So look, there are a lot of different versions. And I think it speaks to the anxiety of going to a barber shop. And don't forget, in some of these earlier periods, this is a barber who might, you know, aid you in the cutting off of a limb as well as tooth extraction, et cetera, et cetera. This is more of a surgeon. So it's someone who's doing bloody and gory things to people a lot alongside having a shave. And also, just think about being shaved even in the Victorian era with a cutthroat razor. The clue is in the name. Have you ever done that? Do you have a cutthroat razor?

[Anthony]

Oh, God, no, I don't. Jesus, I couldn't trust myself with that. No.

[Maddie]

Matt's got one at home. He has, like a whole shaving, like, ritual he likes to do. He's bougie.

[Anthony]

I have a razor and I shave.

[Maddie]

Yeah, that's about it.

[Anthony]

But it is a real. It is blades.

[Maddie]

I feel sorry for you having to shave like. Like every day almost.

[Anthony]

Don't. We don't have periods. It's fine.

[Maddie]

Well, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Anthony]

Don't think about it.

[Maddie]

But kind of a pain in the ass.

[Anthony]

Sure. I mean, again, periods, like we. Whatever we got off.

[Maddie]

Yeah, it's fine. Yeah, that's fine. Because those two things are completely.

[Anthony]

No, I'm just saying if you have to put up with one thing, I'll do that.

[Maddie]

Yeah, yeah, rather, you know.

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[Maddie]

Now.

[Anthony]

We always talk about this, how these stories and these tropes feed into and appear at times of specific fears or conceptions of infiltration or unsteadiness or tumult or tension. Is there something specific about the time in which our Sweeney Todd in the 19th century appears that gives birth to this type of fear?

[Maddie]

I think so. I think it's, you know, what we were saying at the beginning of this episode about feelings of the dangers brought by urbanization. This idea that anyone was a stranger, you couldn't necessarily trust anyone. You didn't know what they were up to in the city, and that the city itself becomes this kind of dark, dangerous, labyrinthine mess of betrayal and crime and murder, and that there are things going on behind every closed door that you are not party to. And the whole time, the Penny Dreadful and other publications like it are capitalising on that fear and fueling it, right? They're constantly churning out, you know, these publishing houses are known as fiction factories. They are just churning out these stories of, you know, all these horrible things happening to people. I think also there's a kind of not so much class tensions because everyone in this Todd story, well, maybe not everyone, but, you know, there's a sense that it's set within the middling and lower working, working classes, right? Like, there's no one kind of aristocratic, I suppose in the original you do have the Lieutenant and the Colonel, who would be perceived in that era to be more respectable, affluent people. But there's a sense of, like, if you are living in the lower stratas of society, you are on your own.

[Anthony]

You have mercy of anything.

[Maddie]

You have to just take care of yourself, like, nobody's going to help you, nobody's going to come and save you. So I think, you know, there's kind of fear there and a kind of resentment there that people are buying into. In terms of the Penny Dreuff, reading that and, you know, is probably quite accurate, in fact, so there's all of that and just thinking about the setting, you know, thinking about all these spaces that were so ubiquitous to people like the pie shop, like the barber shop. But also there's a sort of Gothic overtone to everything. London in this moment is becoming increasingly industrialised. It's, you know, foggy, it's dark, it's grimy. I always think, you know, when you go to certain parts of London today where you have like full streets of Victorian buildings and they've all, you know, they're now worth like millions of pounds or whatever and all the bricks have been like beautifully pressure washed and everything's been restored and it's hard to get an impression of the grime, the dirt from the horses and carriages, the gas lamps eventually, and the kind of griminess that, that, you know, the marks that that would leave and stuff. That these stories are set within that greasy, dirty world of 19th century London.

[Anthony]

And adjacent to that is then this idea of escape and what Londoners are doing to entertain themselves that this feeds into too. So you have, you know, the freak shows, you have Madame Tussaud and it's.

[Maddie]

All incredibly dark though. This is escape through. It's like, let's. And I always say this about sort of true crime today, especially the sort of female interest in true crime. It's like, let's go and look at the worst thing that can happen to make us feel better.

[Anthony]

Yeah, it's that thing. Well, if we do that, then we're not looking at ourselves and it's, you know, it's. Public executions are still happening and it just feeds. This type of story feeds into that genre of entertainment as well as it reflecting the history. But in terms of, in terms of that entertainment, then is there an evolution that comes from the 1840s specifically? We've talked about the 14th century, for God's sake. So we know there's an evolution, but in terms of the English speaking, the.

[Maddie]

Sweeney Todd story, I mean, I think you can definitely, you know, legitimately argue that it goes all the way back to the 14th century and it has this kind of through line and it, you know, is this malleable story that adapts all the time. In terms of the 19th century, yes. So we have the early 1840s penny dreadful version, the String of Pearls. Then next in 1847, we have a stage play by George Dibdin. Then we have, you know, other kind of theatrical versions. There's a later 19th century version that has like fake blood pouring on the stage, there's trap doors, like it's very much. It's an adaptation of the String of Pearls story in particular, but it's very much like meant to kind of shock the audience. You want lots of, like, gasps and ladies fainting and people walking out and that kind of thing. It was meant to be really horrible. And then you start to get stage versions that add in humour, which is a little bit of what we see with the musical that we have inherited now, where Mrs. Lovett becomes a more central character and Sweeney Todd kind of more nuanced and complicated, doesn't he? So you get different versions where he is wronged. So in 1973, jumping to the 20th century, there's a Christopher Bond play that adds the backstory to Sweeney Todd where he's been wronged and he's seeking revenge for his dead family, which, of course, we have in the musical now, 1979, we have the Sondheim and Wheeler musical version that is from 1979. Yeah. So the 70s, we have the play and the musical. It's a big moment for Sweeney Todd. And, you know, that very much kind of adds this comic focus again. Obviously, there's now music added in. And then in 2007, I was right. We have the Tim Burton musical. Thoughts on the Tim Burton musical?

[Anthony]

I enjoyed it. I went to see it. I love Helena Bonham Carter. I love Tim Burton. I love Tim Burton. I was very much in a Sweeney Todd type place in terms of musical because I trained in musical theater. It wasn't just acting, it was musical theater. And so I was consuming an awful lot of musical theater at that time.

[Maddie]

What is your ideal musical role to play?

[Anthony]

Oh, God.

[Royal Match Promoter]

Role?

[Anthony]

None. Now, I don't have any. I don't hold any dreams of musical.

[Maddie]

Theatre now, but if you could just step into one now. Okay.

[Anthony]

It was Parade by Jason Robert Brown. And it's. It's a grim story. Yeah, it was on at the Donmar around that kind of time, actually. 2007, 2008, 2009 maybe. And it's about a man who's accused of murdering a young girl in 19th century America. And it's about how we never find out whether he does it or not. But it's. It's the whole thing and it's. It's just sublime.

[Maddie]

Good tunes.

[Anthony]

So, so good. Yeah, but, like, it's not a rollicking good time, as you might imagine, but Sweeney Todd was up there. One of the first musicals I did after drama school was a Sondheim. We did Assassins. That was my first job, I think. And so, yeah, I was very aware of it in 2007. It was very there. And so I really was.

[Maddie]

It was part of your personality.

[Anthony]

Yeah. And. But then, you know, when you're. When you're a musical theater person, you're just like, oh, well, it didn't do this. And I was like, I don't give a shit.

[Maddie]

But at the time, if I could sing.

[Anthony]

Yeah.

[Maddie]

Phantom of the Opera. Opera. Christine, not the Phantom.

[Anthony]

I mean, I want to see you do the Phantom. I don't want to see you do Christine.

[Maddie]

I mean, what's he called who did it in the film adaptation? He couldn't sing either and he did a great job.

[Anthony]

Oh, I haven't actually seen that one. But again, there was a lot of movie musicals around that time because it was around then as well.

[Maddie]

It was a big influx. Yeah. What else was there?

[Anthony]

There was Hairspray. There was. This is all, you know, give me a five year period here because this.

[Maddie]

Is not all the same year, but Les Mis.

[Anthony]

Yeah. Yes.

[Maddie]

Maybe towards the end of that period. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Anthony]

It was there.

[Maddie]

There was lots.

[Anthony]

Yeah, yeah. Went to Chicago probably a bit before that.

[Maddie]

Right.

[Anthony]

Did Chicago. Start all of that.

[Maddie]

I would be anyone in Chicago. Just anything.

[Anthony]

Yeah.

[Maddie]

Delicious.

[Anthony]

I did Chicago for my showcase. All of these musical theater.

[Maddie]

Wow.

[Anthony]

Oh, God, I can't even begin to.

[Maddie]

And now, if you want to listen to some bonus material, Anthony will now be singing the entirety of Chicago.

[Anthony]

Yeah, I won't. No, I really won't. But yeah, no, that was a different time.

[Maddie]

Yeah, yeah, nice.

[Anthony]

Anyway, there you go. Thank you for bringing me back to my musical theatre background there, Maddy Pelling. That is the history of Sweeney Todd, which even we weren't convinced that there was much of a history. But actually when you look into what's going on on the street level in terms of how entertainment is being consumed, what's influencing that entertainment output, then it's a really interesting way to consume that history and bring a bit of history to that folk tale, that horror tale. So thank you for doing that. I've enjoyed today's episode. If you have have chat away in the comments, wherever you listen to your podcast or if you're watching on YouTube, let us know your thoughts on Sweeney Todd, on the movie adaptations, if you've seen it on stage. Who's your favorite Sweeney Todd? If you are a musical theater kid. I know. But until next time when we have another gory, dark or disturbing history for you. Sleep.

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[Maddie]

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[Maddie]

More, it's about giving more for less. Ross, work your magic. Tal is from a correctional facility and.

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[Maddie]

Wherever you get your podcasts from.