Me and Zoe have recently come along a film/musical that we cannot wait to see.
It's called Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barbor of Fleet Street.
We decided to do a little bit of research and this is what we found out about Sweeney!
Earlyest History.
Todd's first appearance could have been in a British penny dreadful called The People's Periodical, in issue 7, dated November 21, 1846. The story in which he appeared was titled "The String of Pearls: A Romance," and was probably written by Thomas Prest, who created a number of other gruesome villains. He tended to base his horror stories on grains of truth, sometimes gaining inspiration from real crime reports in The Times.
Backround
It is sometimes claimed that the Sweeney Todd story is based upon fact, but no reliable evidence of this has ever been found. According to the tale, Todd was tried at the Old Bailey and hanged at Tyburn in January 1802, in front of a large crowd. However, no record of the trial can be found in the Old Bailey sessions papers or the Newgate Calendar, nor are there any contemporary press reports either of the trial or of the hanging. As early as 1878 a contributor to Notes and Queries noted this absence of authentic non-fictional sources. Peter Haining, while arguing for historical reality, does not offer verifiable specifics.
An episode in the legend of Saint Nicholas may represent a yet earlier version. This episode, which likely developed in the eleventh century, sees three clerks seeking accommodations for the night. In the night, their host murders them and, on the advice of his wife, decides to dispose of the evidence by baking the clerks into meat pies. The saint eventually resurrects the young scholars.
The cannibalistic trait of the story goes back as far as the myth of Pelops, while the moralistic symbolism of eating one's fellow man appears in social satire such as Jonathan Swift's A Modest Proposal. The myth's imagery of meat pies made from people is almost certainly an allusion to the finale of Shakespeare's Titus Andronicus and the original Roman tale on which it was based. 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 underlie both legends.
Adaptations
The String of Pearls was adapted as a melodrama in 1847 by George Dibdin Pitt and opened at the Britannia Theatre in Hoxton, with the title Sweeney Todd the Demon Barber of Fleet Street and billed as 'founded on fact'. It was something of a success, and the story spread by word of mouth and took on the quality of an urban legend. Various versions of the tale were staples of the British theatre for the rest of the century.
In 1936 a film version of the Victorian melodrama was made, called Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber Of Fleet Street, starring Tod Slaughter in the title role.
"Sweeney Todd, The Barber" is a song which assumes its audience knows the stage version and claims that such a character in real life was even more remarkable. Stanley Holloway, who recorded it in 1956, attributed it to R. P. Weston, a song writer active from 1906 to 1934.
The duo known as the Two Ronnies produced a musical sketch called "Teeny Todd, the Demon Barber of Queer Street" with Ronnie Corbett in the title role. The sketch features the barber cutting throats with a razor and then pulling a lever to send his victims into the baker's shop below.
Sweeney Todd is one of the main characters of the 1970 horror film Bloodthirsty Butchers, directed by Andy Milligan.
The British playwright Christopher Bond wrote a 1973 play titled Sweeney Todd. This version of the story was the first to give Todd a motive other than pure greed: He is a wrongfully imprisoned barber named Benjamin Barker who returns to London after fifteen years in Australia under the name Sweeney Todd to find that the judge responsible for his imprisonment has raped and murdered his young wife. He swears revenge, but when he is thwarted for a while, he begins to slash the throats of his customers. This new element of Sweeney Todd being motivated by vengeance was Bond's way of grafting dramatic themes from The Revenger's Tragedy onto George Dibdin Pitt's stage plot.
Portions of a version of the Sweeney Todd story by Neil Gaiman were published in the comics anthology Taboo in the 1980s and 90s. The project was never finished.
In 1998, Ben Kingsley and Joanna Lumley starred in the John Schlesinger-directed The Tale Of Sweeney Todd, a television movie commissioned by Sky for which Kingsley received a Screen Actors Guild Best Actor nomination.
A BBC television drama version with a screenplay written by Joshua St Johnston and starring Ray Winstone and Essie Davis was broadcast on BBC One on 3 January 2006.
A Tim Burton interpretation, starring Johnny Depp (Sweeney Todd), Helena Bonham Carter (Mrs. Lovett), and Alan Rickman (Judge Turpin), will be released in December of 2007.
The Musical.
Sweeney Todd, the Demon Barber of Fleet Street is a Tony Award-winning musical with a book by Hugh Wheeler and music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim. The musical is based on the 19th-century legend of Sweeney Todd, and specifically upon the 1973 play by Christopher Bond.
Sweeney Todd opened on Broadway at the Uris Theatre on March 1, 1979. The musical played for 576 performances. The story centers on the character of Sweeney Todd, formerly known as Benjamin Barker, who returns from the penal colonies in Australia, where he has spent fifteen years on false charges. When he learns from Mrs. Lovett, whose meat pies are the worst in London, that his wife poisoned herself after being raped by Judge Turpin, and his daughter is the ward of Judge Turpin, who imprisoned him, he vows revenge. The two become conspirators in a dark plot that results in mass murder, booming business for Lovett's shop, and ultimately tragedy.
Cast for 2007 movie
Johnny Depp as Benjamin Barker / Sweeney Todd
Helena Bonham Carter as Mrs. Nellie Lovett
Alan Rickman as Judge Turpin
Timothy Spall as Beadle Bamford
Sacha Baron Cohen as Signor Adolfo Pirelli
Laura Michelle Kelly as Lucy Barker, she also plays The Beggar Woman
Jamie Campbell Bower as Anthony Hope
Jayne Wisener as Johanna
Ed Sanders as Tobias Ragg
Michael N. Harbour as Jonas Fogg
Songs to be in the 2007 movie. (confirmed thus far)(One's stared are on playlist)
"The Ballad of Sweeney Todd" - Ghost narrators
"My Friends" - Sweeney Todd, Mrs. Lovett (advance scene screening)
"Pretty Women" - Sweeney Todd, Judge Turpin (Alan Rickman interview)
"Epiphany" - Sweeney Todd (trailer) *
"A Little Priest" - Sweeney Todd, Mrs. Lovett (Trailer)*
"Johanna" - Sweeney Todd*
"By the Sea" - Mrs. Lovett, Sweeney Todd (trailer)
"Final Sequence" - Mrs. Lovett, Sweeney Todd (trailer)
2007 films rating.
R
For graphic bloody violence
The Trailer
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wNjhxNAKKMg
Our Opinion.
Zoe: I personally think it sounds really cool and the fact that this may be actually based on something makes is cooler! (Update) ZOMG I just saw the play, it was weird brilliant and AWESOME!
Xaldin: I agree, it sounds interesting an there is a lot of cool things going on plot wise and I have always loved a good thriller. (Update) It was interesting...the ending was kind of messed up though.
((Note I saw the play version not the movie ^-^; ))
Source's
All info gotten from www.wikipedia.org .
