History Theatre / SweeneyToddTheDemonBarberOfFleetStreet

* CrapsackWorld: With one or two possible exceptions, every character is either a CompleteMonster or an ExtremeDoormat.

* SexIsEvilAndIAmHorny: Various theater versions of this musical have various takes on this. Some make him a more clear-cut example by highlighting his self-loathing, while others make him a more one-dimensional CompleteMonster.

* RapeAsDrama: Lucy Barker. Probably, Johanna. Probably.

** The bird seller talking about how they make the birds sing. "We blind 'em. That's what we always does. We blind 'em and, not knowing night from day, they sing and they sing without stopping. Pretty creatures."

** The sentencing of a little boy to death (Judge Turpin)

* [[spoiler:KillEmAll]]: Were you expecting a revenge tragedy to have a happy ending? [[spoiler:Sweeney Todd, Judge Turpin, Lucy, and Mrs. Lovett are all dead. Only Toby, Johanna, and presumably Anthony are all alive. The police burst into the bakehouse just after Toby has slit Sweeney's throat, and is deliriously repeating Mrs. Lovett's secret of how to make the pies juicy and tender. "Three times, that's the secret.. three times through the grinder." This suggests that Toby is on his way to a BedlamHouse. Anthony and Johanna are also there with the police, though their presence is not explained (probably the fact that Johanna just witnessed two grisly murders has to do with it, though), and whether or not they get anything resembling a happy ending is left open to interpretation.]]

** Or with Angela Lansbury.

* RuleOfThrees: There were originally three songs written called "Johanna", one of them sung by Anthony, the second by Judge Turpin and the last by Sweeney.

* SanitySlippageSong: "Epiphany." Dear gods, "Epiphany."

** A case for Mrs. Lovett being one of these can be made with respect to Todd. She waited ''15 years'' for him and never knew him any more than in passing. She also outright confesses she's been ''watching'' him. Which is pretty {{squick}}y even if she is played by a grotesquely attractive Helena Bonham Carter.

* TragicDream: She may be a CompleteMonster, but Lovett's enthusiastic dream of marrying Todd and living a blissful life in a seaside StepfordSuburbia is never going to happen. As everything starts falling apart she seems to grow desperate to cling to this.
* TheUglyGuysHotDaughter: Sweeney Todd and Johanna. {{Justified|Trope}} as 15 years in prison would not do wonders in the looks department.

* VillainSong: Almost ''every other song'', but especially "Epiphany."
* TheVillainSucksSong: "Poor Thing," which describes Judge Turpin's most despicable act.
* VillainousBreakdown / [[{{VillainousBSOD}} BSOD]]:

* WrongGenreSavvy: Anthony believes himself to be the romantic hero of a love story between him and Johanna and is completely naive to how corrupt and evil the other characters are (including his "friend" Sweeney Todd). Johanna seems much less naive than him as she grew up with the Judge and knows how awful he is. Similarly, in different ways, both Toby and Mrs. Lovett seem to think of themselves as being in a more conventional Victorian rags to riches story, with Lovett planning a better life away from the city, and Toby believing that he can protect and repay her for saving him. Indeed, much of the pathos in the play comes from characters acting as though they are in a rather different style of performance.

* CycleOfRevenge: Turpin and Bamford were responsible for the imprisonment of Sweeney, so he went on a quest to hunt them down. Then immediately after [[spoiler: he finally achieved his vengeance, Sweeney finds out Lovett's lies about his wife, whom he killed earlier, so he throws her in the oven, and then he himself was killed by Toby in the end.]]

* SoundtrackDissonance: One of the best scores in musical theatre belongs to a play about a guy who slits people's throats and has them baked into pies. A beautifully [[AWorldwidePunomenon executed]] example in the "Johanna" sequence near the beginning of Act II, where Sweeney's steady, gentle, romantic theme is at odds with the atrocities he is simultaneously committing, showing how disassociated he has become.

* BedlamHouse: Fogg's Asylum, into which Johanna is imprisoned, is a perfect example of this.

* BigNo: Issued by Sweeney when Mrs. Lovett informs him of his wife's rape at the end of "Poor Thing."

* TheCastShowoff: Beadle Bamford is usually expected to actually play the harmonium.
** Not to mention the entire cast of the 2005 Broadway revival - they all played various instruments.

* ContrivedProximity: I'm sure that old beggar woman has no importance to the story whatsoever...
** [[spoiler:She was hanging around her own old house and where her daughter lived. Still had ''some'' memories.]]

* DoubleEntendre: "You will be guaranteed, without a penny's charge...''the closest shave you will ever know''."
** "We'll serve anyone...meaning *anyone*..."

* DrivenToSuicide: Lucy poisoned herself, according to Mrs. Lovett. [[spoiler: [[SubvertedTrope Except she never said that she died...]]]]
** Some productions may have Sweeney fill this trope after [[spoiler: he realizes he killed his wife]]. Though arguably it'd be assisted suicide. Take the concert production, Sweeney unbuttons his collar so [[spoiler: Toby can slit his throat easier.]]

* EvenEvilHasStandards: Sweeney slits people's throats with a straight razor and has the bodies baked into pies, but he won't kill men who have families, which is understandable, since the reason for his RoaringRampageOfRevenge is that he was unjustly taken away from his wife and daughter, who were then raped/DrivenToSuicide ([[spoiler:well, not exactly]]) and adopted/implied to be sexually abused by Judge Turpin, respectively. Though it may be more PragmaticVillainy, families mean witnesses and investigations.
** The latter explains why it's PlayedForLaughs in the stage version.

* {{Irony}}: Johanna is the only member of her family who goes to an [[BedlamHouse insane asylum]], but she's also the only member of her family who hasn't gone insane.
** That really depends on how she's played--sometimes she's already insane, and sometimes she only goes insane after she's put in the insane asylum.
*** Actually, the lyrics in "Kiss Me" imply that she is at least very unstable. "It was a gate, it's the gate... - We don't have a gate!"

* KarmicDeath: [[spoiler:Sweeney Todd delivers one to Judge Turpin out of vengeance and later suffers another himself by irony.]]
** Likewise, [[spoiler:Mrs Lovett is baked to death inside her own oven.]]

* LampshadedDoubleEntendre: "If you get my drift..."

*** And when paired with Patti [=LuPone=], it gets taken to new levels, very effectively.
*** Or with Angela Lansbury.

* MadnessMantra: In a way, the old woman [[spoiler:Lucy]], near the end. "Beadle deedle deedle deedle deedle deedle deedle dumpling!"

** Tobias Ragg.
*** How so?
*** A 'Ragg' is something used for the basest tasks, which was how Pirelli treated him.

* NotEvenBotheringWithTheAccent: Len Cariou in the original production made no attempt at an English accent.
** Which actually helped sharpen the character's isolation from the rest of the cast, most of whom either were English or affecting FakeBrit accents.

* RapeAsDrama: Lucy Barker.
** Probably, Johanna. Probably.

* ScareChord: SWING YOUR RAZOR WIDE, SWEENEY! HOLD IT TO THE SKY!
** The first two verses were sung with only the singer illuminated. During the music between the second verse and the above line, the entire stage was dark and the entire cast assembled in ranks. The line starts; cue ''every'' spotlight in the house going on and ScareChord. Truly amazing.
* SceneryPorn: The stage version generally ''has'' to use a double-level set and depending on the available resources it can get more elaborate from there. On the other hand, John Doyle's 2004 staging in London (later transferred to Broadway) was a minimalist version that had only 10 actors who played instruments when they were not singing themselves, and only suggested its settings.

* SlidingScaleOfIdealismVersusCynicism: Todd is contrasted with the young sailor Anthony ''Hope'', who is a romantic idealist.
** It should be noted that Anthony Hope [[spoiler:is still alive at the end.]] Whether this is good or bad is dependent on where ''you'' fall on the SlidingScaleOfIdealismVersusCynicism.

* SoundtrackDissonance: One of the best scores in musical theatre belongs to a play about a guy who slits people's throats and has them baked into pies.
** A beautifully [[AWorldwidePunomenon executed]] example in the "Johanna" sequence near the beginning of Act II, where Sweeney's steady, gentle, romantic theme is at odds with the atrocities he is simultaneously committing, showing how disassociated he has become.

* StalkerWithACrush: Anthony, to Johanna.

* VillainousBreakdown / [[{{VillainousBSOD}} BSOD]]: "Epiphany." Dear gods, "Epiphany." Also, Sweeney seems to descend into an even deeper circle of insanity hell after he finds out [[spoiler:he killed his own wife]].

* VillainousCrush: Judge Turpin for both Lucy and Johanna.

* WrongGenreSavvy: Anthony believes himself to be the romantic hero of a love story between him and Johanna and is completely naive to how corrupt and evil the other characters are (including his "friend" Sweeney Todd). Johanna seems much less naive than him as she grew up with the Judge and knows how awful he is.
** Similarly, in different ways, both Toby and Mrs. Lovett seem to think of themselves as being in a more conventional Victorian rags to riches story, with Lovett planning a better life away from the city, and Toby believing that he can protect and repay her for saving him. Indeed, much of the pathos in the play comes from characters acting as though they are in a rather different style of performance.

* LethalChef: Subverted - Mrs. Lovett is this before she starts making pies of human flesh; she says because she couldn't afford fresh meat she resorted to "finding animals dying in the street". Afterward, her meat pies are delicious (if now lethal in a rather ''different'' way).
** Actually it's implied that another baker in the neighborhood is using animals: "Mrs. Mooney has a pie shop!/Does a business but I notice something weird/Lately all her neighbors' cats have disappeared!/Have to hand it to her --/Wot I calls/Enterprise/Poppin' pussies into pies!/Wouldn't do in my shop!" It's not until the number "A Little Priest" that Mrs. Lovett begins using unusual sources of meat.
** "And I'm telling you, them pussycats is quick!" Lovett is plenty "enterprising" herself.
*** Except she's not - she's too slow to catch them. "Wouldn't do in my shop/Just the thought of it's enough to make you sick/And I'm telling you, them pussycats is quick." If she was fast enough she'd be using them but cause she can't her pies are "nothing but crusting" and "only lard and nothing more"

* KickTheSonOfABitch: Sweeney begins his transition into a SerialKiller by killing [[spoiler: Pirelli, a con artist who abuses Toby.]]

* IWasQuiteALooker: Lucy Barker

* EpicSong: The eponymous Ballad that opens and closes the show fits.

->Attend the tale of Sweeney Todd.\\
His skin was pale and his eye was odd.\\
He shaved the faces of gentlemen,\\
Who never thereafter were heard of again.\\
He trod a path that few had trod,\\
Did Sweeney Todd,\\
The Demon Barber of Fleet Street.
-->-- from the opening number, "The Ballad of Sweeney Todd"

* KickTheSonOfABitch: Sweeney begins his transition into a SerialKiller by killing [[spoiler: Adolfo Pirelli, a con artist who abuses Tobias Ragg.]]

* KickTheSonOfABitch: Sweeney begins his transition into a SerialKiller by [[spoiler: killing Adolfo Pirelli.]]

* MomentKiller: Anthony walks into the barbershop for one of his trademark [[WhatAnIdiot interruptions]] right after Mrs. Lovett suggests to Sweeney that they can "have a life together." [[YourMileageMayVary YMMV]], especially if you're not a Sweeney/Lovett fan.

* KickTheSonOfABitch: Sweeney begins his transition into a SerialKiller by killing [[spoiler: Adolfo Pirelli.]]

* KickTheSonOfABitch: Sweeney begins his transition into a SerialKiller by killing Adolfo Pirelli.

* VillainousBreakdown: "Epiphany." Dear gods, "Epiphany." Also, Sweeney seems to descend into an even deeper circle of insanity hell after he finds out [[spoiler:he killed his own wife]].

* KickTheSonOfABitch: Sweeney beings his transition into a SerialKiller by killing Adolfo Pirelli.