LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Sweeney Todd: Judge Turpin
built 119 days ago
Sweeney Todd opened on Broadway at the Uris Theatre on March 1, 1979. It was directed by Harold Prince with musical staging by Larry Fuller, and starred Len Cariou as Sweeney Todd and Angela Lansbury as Mrs. Lovett. The musical played for 557 performances.[2] 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 (the man who wrongly imprisoned him), and that his daughter is the ward of the same Judge Turpin, 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.
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Sweeney exists in a fallen state. Benjamin Barker, his former self, was apparently a good and upright man who encouraged his wife for her virtue "instead of leaving his bed for a couple of nights" when the Judge began making improper advances (Bond 4). However, his idealism was his tragic mistake; he felt that virtue would be his protection. Such naiveté led to his fall. Now he has changed his name not only for secrecy but ... as a sign that he is that man no longer. When Mrs. Lovett asks his name, he replies, "Todd, Sweeney Todd.
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Sweeney moves back into his old apartment, above the meat-pie shop owned by Mrs. Lovett (Helena Bonham Carter), who makes the worst pies in London. She remembers Sweeney Todd as Benjamin Barker, for whom she's been pining away all these years. She's kept his razors in good condition for him, and Sweeney vows to use them to get revenge. But a lot of Londoners will end up in Mrs. Lovett's meat pies before the demon barber gets a real chance at Turpin's throat.
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Todd has crept back into the city accompanied by an idealistic young sailor, Anthony (Jamie Campbell Bower), who spies Todd's beauteous young daughter Johanna (Jayne Wisener) and falls in love. Problem: She has been the ward of Judge Turpin (Alan Rickman, surprisingly low-key) ever since the villain banished her father and ravished her mother (Laura Michelle Kelly in flashbacks). Ickier problem: Now the judge wants to marry his ward.
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Todd returns to London years after being wronged by Judge Turpin (Rickman). He devotes his life to revenge and doesn't care whom he must sacrifice to attain it; the fact that he constantly breaks into song doesn't mean he's merry, just that he's in a musical.
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Released years later, an older, unkempt, and largely unrecognizable Barker christens himself Sweeney Todd and returns to his former home, determined to avenge the crimes against him. Those crimes are magnified when his former landlady, Mrs. Lovett—a pie maker who claims to make the “worst pies in London”—tells Todd that his wife poisoned herself after Turpin carried out his plan and she is now deceased, but the judge intends to marry Barker’s teenage daughter, who was only an infant when Turpin made her his ward.
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Judge Turpin