Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (theatre)/YMMV

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• Alternate Show Interpretation: The 2005 Broadway revival, in which all of the characters are portrayed as inmates enacting the events in a madhouse.
  • The 2012 West End production gave a Setting Update by placing the show in the 1930s.
• Alternative Character Interpretation: All over the place. Toby, for one. As the role is vocally demanding, adults are often cast in the part, which makes for the question of whether Toby is a kid or a mentally disabled man. For that note, the motives of the Beadle are ambiguous, whether he's a psychopath who's as bad as the judge or just a police officer who sincerely believes the judge is a good man. Then there's the matter of whether Anthony is a romantic hero who saves Johanna from the Judge or if he's a creepy stalker (though he's definitely a major step-up from Judge Turpin).
  • Also, the casting of Sweeney Todd himself varies from actor to actor - George Hearn's Todd is powerfully built, with a boisterous, pitch-black sense of humor. His cackles after his Heroic BSOD (Or Villainous Breakdown / BSOD in this case) song end up matching Mrs. Lovett's Stepford Smiler evil. Johnny Depp's Todd is a waif of a man. He's a quiet, haunted misanthrope before he snaps, and a barely-functional sociopath after, having to be led around and prodded into action by Dark Genki Girl Mrs. Lovett.
  • Johanna sometimes portrayed as insane from the beginning of the show. Actually, the libretto, especially "Kiss me", implies her to be at least paranoid and unstable. Also, she is the one who shoots Fogg. Could repeat that again - a demure young noble lady of late XVIII-early XIX century who never left her house and most probably never lifted anything heavier than a needle, never saw any blood and gore and couldn't see even a picture of a pistol shoots Fogg. She probably takes more after her father than anybody realizes.
    • Johanna can also be interpreted as genuinely in love with Anthony or just using him as a means to escape the Judge. The 2007 film, for example, went with the latter.
  • Judge Turpin, of all people, gets one depending on whether his song ["Johanna"] removed or not (that being said, it is so often removed for a good reason). This song shows that he actually tried to resist the temptation Johanna was causing and even seems to imply that she was his Morality Pet. "Johanna, Johanna, I treasured you in innocence and loved you like a daughter".
  • Does Mrs. Lovett genuinely care about Toby or just as uninterested in him as she is with everyone else other than Sweeney?
  • The 2014 concert hinted that Toby might be romantically interested in Mrs. Lovett and additionally featured a scene where the Beadle hits on her.
  • Reinterpreting the characters from the original penny dreadful is essentially how the version of the story most people are now familiar with came into being.
• Awesome Music: The Ballad of Sweeney Todd, Epiphany, and A Little Priest, just to name a few. Well... really the entire song list (given the right cast) but bonus points go to Johanna Reprise.
• Complete Monster: Judge Turpin and the Beadle
• Creepy Awesome/Evil Is Sexy: Sweeney Todd
• Despair Event Horizon: Sweeney definitely crosses it when he kills his wife Lucy and later finds out what he's done and feels heavy regret. This implies that he's shown heavy regret for his actions and the end reveals how much suffering he has felt throughout the film.
• Ear Worm: Just try to get any of the songs out of your head after viewing the theater or movie version. It's bloody impossible (but delightfully so).
  • Beadle deedle deedle deedle deedle dumpling beadle dumpling ba deedle deedle deedle deedle deedle deedle deedle deedle deedle deedle deedle deedle deedle...
• Ensemble Darkhorse: Toby in the 2001 concert version, for some reason
• Evil Makeover: Sorta, or something. When Todd and Mrs. Lovett take Toby under their wing, Toby starts to get some characteristics from them, mostly the untamed hair and some eyebags and very pale skin.
• Ho Yay: It's made clear in the reprise in "The Barber and His Wife" that both Turpin and Bamford have a thing for Lucy. In the movie, however, the lyrics are changed so that only the Judge's affections are mentioned.
  • He may be only Turpin's Igor.
• Incest Subtext: Todd's "Johanna (Reprise)", hinting it would be dangerous for him to meet Johanna if she looks too much like her mother...
• Jerkass Woobie: Mrs. Lovett, who is something of a Love Martyr.
• Magnificent Bastard: Sweeney, himself.
• Moral Event Horizon: The "Poor Thing" scene with Judge Turpin and Lucy Barker, and the scene where Mrs. Lovett locks Toby in the meat-grinder basement so Sweeney can kill him.
  • It was made clear that Mrs. Lovett understood what she was doing, since she was crying throughout. Creepy.
• Most Annoying Sound: The terrifyingly loud, shrill sound of the factory whistle.
• Motive Decay:
  • Sweeney quickly goes from desiring only revenge on the Judge and Beadle responsible for his imprisonment and stealing his wife and daughter to a vendetta against all humanity. However, given that in the original Victorian "shilling shocker", Sweeney had no motivation for his crimes, this is undoubtedly an improvement.
  • There's even a song that illustrates it: his part in the Johanna Quartet.
  • Todd's Motive Decay is a fully-fledged part of his character arc; come The Reveal at the very end, Todd realizes what a monster he has become in allowing his lust for revenge and violence to consume him.
• Narm: Toby reciting pat-a-cake before slitting Todd's throat can be this if not executed properly.
• Nightmare Fuel: After you get over the murderous barber and the cannibalism, enjoy your nightmares about the mentally deranged manchild. I can't sleep, Toby will get me.
  • Toby's pat-a-cake-pat-a-cake at the end, Judge Turpin, The tooth pulling scene (in the original), the 2005 revival.
  • "Epiphany" is particularly horrifying. Watching Sweeney take a flying leap into the pit of insanity, combined with the song's tendency to switch between his declaring vengeance on all of humanity and mourning his wife and daughter.
  • The beggar woman becomes that much more horrifically tragic when you realize she's Sweeney's wife and the combination of the traumatic assault and attempted suicide have left her a shell of her former self.
• Paranoia Fuel: A trip to the barber's or a pie shop both made very creepy for the Victorian audience. For the typical modern audiences, this story has made the straight razor unsettlingly best known as a weapon of murder.
• Romantic Plot Tumor: The romance subplot between Johanna and Anthony, particularly in the film where Relationship Compression comes into play and Anthony is portrayed as an insufferable bishie wannabe.
• Squick: To be fair, the whole thing is pretty squicky, but Judge Turpin gets a special mention for "Johanna (Mea Culpa)," where he flagellates himself to orgasm while watching his teenaged ward through a keyhole. While singing. It was cut from the original Broadway production, and, unsurprisingly, it's only occasionally reinstated. When done well, the sequence can be one of the most chilling in the show...which is about serial murder and cannibalism.
• The Woobie: Toby, poor kid. Johanna too, seeing what she's had to live with.
  • Jerkass Woobie: Mrs. Lovett, who is something of a Love Martyr.