Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street

Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of death and death by suicide.

The play is set in 19th-century London when the Industrial Revolution is in full swing. Though Sweeney Todd and Mrs. Lovett live outside the factory complex that defined this era, various elements of the production point to their inability to escape its impact. Mrs. Lovett laments about the price of meat, highlighting the difficulty of affording ordinary goods for common people. These goods become luxuries that only people like Judge Turpin can enjoy. By contrast, Mrs. Lovett’s bakehouse looks like a factory, with its industrial tools and machines, including the meat grinder that she uses to churn people into products.

With this political subtext underpinning the setting of the play, the conflict between Todd and Turpin becomes an allegory for the wealthy classes’ exploitation of the working class. Todd’s quest for revenge is driven by Turpin leveraging his social power as a judge to incarcerate Barker and exploit Lucy. Turpin’s carnal desire transformed Lucy and Johanna into commodities and Barker into collateral damage. Turpin used his power to incarcerate Barker, though Barker committed no crime, speaking to the corruption of institutions during the Industrial Revolution.