Reprinted from Green Man Review.
I first attended the tale of Sweeney Todd when I was in high school. The CBC broadcast a live version of the old stage play by George Dibdin Pitt. It featured Barry Morse, who had been chasing Richard Kimble all over America in The Fugitive, as the “Demon Barber” and as hokey as it was it told a story that resonated somehow. Maybe it was because of the barber shop right next to the meat pie shop just a few blocks away from my house! Later the story was updated and some understandable motivations added to Sweeney’s activities (revenge) by Christopher Bond whose play was then adapted by Hugh Wheeler and Stephen Sondheim into a hugely successful Broadway musical. Almost an opera, in fact, it has so little actual dialogue! The musical was shown on television, the original cast album became a staple of my playlist in university. When the road show came along, I took my wife, who said, “Don’t take me to shows like that anymore!” The local little theatre performed it, I took my son! We loved it. And before Christmas, just in time for the season of joy, my two (now much older sons) rushed to Silver City on opening day to see Johnny Depp, spraying blood everywhere! I’m playing the soundtrack right now in fact!
Due to the success of Tim Burton’s film, the bookshelves are filling up with assorted Sweeney Todd paraphernalia, and this book from 1993 has been re-issued with new material to appeal to the curious. Author Peter Haining admits, in his “Note” at the beginning of the new edition that, “when the first edition of this book was published over a decade ago in 1993 there was still much in dispute about the life of Sweeney Todd, the Nineteenth Century serial killer. Subsequent research . . . [and some] important historical discoveries . . . have now, I believe, established his existence beyond doubt.” Well . . . next they’ll tell me that there’s a real Hannibal “the Cannibal” Lecter!
Haining deals with the legend, with the new facts, and with the fictional representations of the “Demon Barber” and blends and sifts the material to come up with a “true” picture of the “cut-throat killer.” Does he succeed? In some ways, brutally! His description of the “killer chair” which dropped Todd’s victims into the cellar, breaking their necks in the process, is as grisly as the technicolour images in Burton’s film. Todd would check each victim, and cut the throats of any who survived the fall. He describes the art of meat-pie making that was popular in 19th century London, and suggests how the deal with Mrs. Lovett might have been arranged. The black and white illustrations from early sources (like “The Strand” and “The Newgate Calendar”) and by artists as well known as George Cruikshank assist in capturing the time and place.
The author also deals, in some depth, with the long history of the “Tale of Sweeney Todd.” That is, how this real life criminal has made the transition to film star. The addition of revenge as a motive has certainly helped. Who doesn’t feel for poor old Benjamin Barker, wrongly accused, sent off to Australia so Judge Turpin can have his way with the missus? Well, at least until Barker’s poor mind snaps and bloodlust gets the better of him. Haining’s book provides plenty of background material to mull over, and a clear and vibrant picture of the real story. A handy addition to anyone caught up in Sondheim’s web.
Why does the tale of Sweeney Todd speak to me so clearly? I don’t know, think it might have something to do with the fact that the first barber to cut my hair, when I was a lad, had only one finger on his left hand. And the meat pie shop was right next door! Hmmm.
(Robson Books, 2008, original edition published 1993)
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