Characters / Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street

Character page for Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (the musical by Stephen Sondheim and the 2007 film by Tim Burton).

---

Benjamin Barker / Sweeney Todd

Played by: Len Cariou (Original Broadway Cast), George Hearn (2001 Concert), Johnny Depp (2007 film), Michael Ball (West End, 2012), Josh Groban, Aaron Tveit (2023 Broadway revival)

Dubbed by: Bruno Choël (European French, 2007 film)

The intentionally sympathetic Villain Protagonist. He was born Benjamin Barker and used to be married to Lucy, before Judge Turpin sent him to Australia on a false charge, raped his wife, and adopted his daughter. When he comes back, he has gone completely insane, seeking bloody revenge on Turpin — and later, everyone in London.

---

• Adaptational Attractiveness: Depending on the staging, he ranges from worn-out and burly (but with a great head of hair) in the original production, to young-middle-aged and intense but fairly handsome still (arguably applies to Michael Cerveris in the 2005 revival, Johnny Depp in the film, and Josh Groban in the 2023 revival).
  • For the record, he is described in the libretto as a "heavyset, saturnine man in his forties".
• Adaptational Heroism:
  • In "The String of Pearls", the penny dreadful the play is based on, Sweeney Todd is an unrepentant murderer motivated by greed and bloodlust with no sympathetic or redeeming qualities. In this musical, he's a tragic character. He used to be a normal family man, until a corrupt judge deported him to Australia for a crime he didn't commit to get at his wife. When he comes back, he initially only wants to take revenge on said judge and his beadle, but unfortunate circumstances and his own increasing insanity drive him to commit worse and worse crimes. To top it all off, he's absolutely horrified when he realizes that he unwittingly killed his wife.
  • In the Christopher Bond play that directly inspired the musical, Sweeney hears Tobias walking into the carnage and he repents for mistreating the boy, decides to free him, and even says aloud that he wouldn't care if Tobias reported his misdeeds to the world. While the musical removes those lines, it can be interpreted that he decided not to target Toby.
• Adaptational Sympathy: Quite possibly one of the most famous examples of this. Fans of this Todd would be floored to see the vicious, unsympathetic monster the original Todd is.
• Adaptation Name Change: Downplayed. In the original story and all other adaptations, "Sweeney Todd" was by all accounts his real name. In this specific adaptation, it is an alias with his real name being "Benjamin Barker."
• Alas, Poor Villain: Dies broken, holding the body of his wife.
• A Lighter Shade of Black: He may be an insane Serial Killer who has his victims processed into meat pies, but he's still a saint compared to Judge Turpin, a Hanging Judge who had him sent to Australia on a false charge and raped his wife.
• Alliterative Name: Benjamin Barker.
• Anti-Hero: Initially, a Nominal Hero. Before "Epiphany", his sole goal is plain revenge on Judge Turpin. After Epiphany, however, he goes completely mad and becomes a Villain Protagonist.
• Anti-Villain: He's the Woobie version of one. He used to be a nice guy with a beautiful wife and daughter, until he was sent to Australia under false charges to satisfy Judge Turpin's jealousy, causing Benjamin Barker to become Sweeney Todd after his return to London.
• Ax-Crazy: Sweeney grows increasingly more unstable as the story goes on, until he is so far gone that he unknowingly kills his wife, whom he believed to be dead, and almost unknowingly kills his own daughter, just because he doesn't want any witnesses.
• Bald of Evil: As played by Michael Cerveris◊ in the 2005 Broadway revival.
• Big "NO!": His reaction to finding out what Turpin did to Lucy during "Poor Thing."
• Broken Tears: Prone to these. Mainly after learning what happened to Lucy and later learning he killed her.
• BSoD Song: "Epiphany", where he expands his quest for revenge from just the judge and the beadle to all of London.
• Capitalism Is Bad: Sweeney makes his views on capitalism pretty clear, singing about a "privileged few making mock of the vermin in the lower zoo" and later, in "A Little Priest", how gratifying it will when "those above will serve those down below" (of course, he means that literally).
• Composite Character: In the original story, Todd was not Johanna's father, that being a spectacle maker surnamed Oakley.
• Crusading Widower: Initially only interested in killing Turpin for, what he thinks, raping and causing his wife to commit suicide.
• Dark and Troubled Past: Was arrested on false charges and shipped to Australia while his wife was raped by Judge Turpin, committing suicide by drinking poison afterwards.
• Decomposite Character: While in the original story, he was the Big Bad himself, in the musical that role is given to a new character: Judge Turpin.
• Despair Event Horizon: As soon as he finds out that he unknowingly killed his wife, he breaks down sobbing and loses the will to live.
• Devoted to You: To his wife, Lucy. He never sought out another woman, and his revenge is fueled by the horrendous actions done to her. Upon the realization that he accidentally killed her, he's horrified by his actions and turns his rage to Mrs. Lovett, who lied about his wife's death.
• Driven to Madness: Having to spend 15 years away from your spouse and child on false charges will do that to you.
• Driven to Suicide: In some adaptations, as well as the 2007 film, he lets Toby kill him at the end as soon he finds out that he killed his wife.
• Driven to Villainy: He only begins killing to avenge the many wrongs inflicted on him and his family by Judge Turpin.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: The entire quest for revenge and the shitshow that follows wouldn't have happened if he didn't love his wife and daughter so much.
• Even Evil Has Standards: He 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 Roaring Rampage of Revenge is that he was unjustly taken away from his wife and daughter, who were then raped/Driven to Suicide (well, not exactly) and adopted/implied to be sexually abused by Judge Turpin, respectively. Though it may be more Pragmatic Villainy, families mean witnesses and investigations. The latter explains why it's Played for Laughs in the stage version. In some productions, he does give a customer's daughter a small treat.
• Evil Is Hammy: George Hearn's Sweeney is especially over the top, though even Johnny Depp's Sweeney has his moments.
• Evil Makeover: The film reveals that he looked much younger and happier when he was still with his wife. After he's imprisoned by Judge Turpin, he becomes a pale-skinned, Cesare-esque stoic.
  • The stage version implies that this happened too, with the original stage version giving him thick, wavy (if unflatteringly parted) hair that suggests he was once a handsome young man, or conversely Michael Cerveris's Sweeney still being relatively young and handsome, but hollow-eyed, dour, and completely bald. Josh Groban in the 2023 revival looks like... well, Josh Groban, but made up to look hollow, gaunt, and exhausted.
• Face Death with Dignity: After accidentally murdering his wife, he allows Toby to kill him. Some stage performances have Todd unbutton his collar first.
  • Josh Groban in the 2023 revival actually laughs with exhausted relief when Toby pulls him up by the hair to slit his throat.
• Faux Affably Evil: He puts on a friendly facade towards his unwitting customers before slicing their throats. This is especially pronounced in his interactions with both Bamford and Turpin.
• From Nobody to Nightmare: He goes from a mere barber to a ruthless serial killer after his years of wrongful imprisonment leave him hungry for revenge.
• The Hero Dies: Define hero. If you mean that they're sympathetic, even if ultimately crazy and murderous, then yes.
• He Who Fights Monsters: In pursuing revenge against Turpin, Sweeney becomes a frightening Serial Killer.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: At the end of the play and the film, Toby slits Sweeney's throat with his own razor.
• "I Want" Song: "My Friends", about his desire for retribution.
• I Was Quite a Looker:
  • Well, he never says so, but Mrs. Lovett certainly thought he was beautiful in his youth. Prison has made him nearly unrecognizable at the start of the story, though the original production gave him improbably lush dark hair◊ (albeit worn rather severely and unflatteringly by that point in his life) to perhaps indicate how handsome he once was.
  • Michael Cerveris's Sweeney is still young and handsome◊, which lends a lot to the suggestion that the main thing making him less recognizable now is the Bald of Evil he presumably acquired in prison.
• Karmic Death: Dies the same way he kills his victims, by having his throat slashed with a razor- though he arguably still dodged some of that karma by at least wanting it by that point.
• Kick the Dog: When he becomes a Serial Killer of innocent men who had nothing to do with what happened with his family.
• Kick The Son Of A Bitch: Sweeney's a raging Serial Killer, yes. However, the audience have no problems with him killing Pirelli, who abuses Toby and tries to blackmail Sweeney. Or Beadle Bamford, who watched Turpin rape Lucy with a sick smile on his face and sadistically beats Anthony. Or even Mrs. Lovett, who lies to Sweeney about his wife's fate out of jealousy. And especially not Judge Turpin, who had Sweeney falsely imprisoned, raped Lucy, intends to do the same to Johanna and sends her to an asylum when she refused, sentences a child to death by hanging, and orders Beadle to beat Anthony.
• Kill the Ones You Love: He unknowingly killed his wife Lucy and almost killed his daughter.
• Killed Mid-Sentence: In the film and some productions, although he isn't cut off per se, just stopping singing and accepting his fate:
  Sweeney: And he was...
• Knight Templar: Everything he does in the play is out of revenge towards the man who raped his wife and who planned to marry his young daughter.
• Lack of Empathy: When he becomes a Serial Killer, Todd slashes men’s throats as causally as one would sway a fly.
• Looks Like Cesare: Comes fairly standard. It's most obvious in the film, thanks to Tim Burton's preferred aesthetic, but even onstage◊ this stands, when the rest of the cast doesn't usually fit it.
• Meaningful Name: His true surname, Barker, lends connotations of being "barking mad", which he certainly ends up being, driven to murder through a twisted form of grief and despair.
• Mercy Kill: How he views killing innocent men, as it means they will find “relief”.
• Messy Hair: The film gives him this. The original production (and its various restagings) veered between this and making his hair still very thick, but also very straight and flat, before settling for the happy medium (thick, wavy enough to poof out quite a bit and flip out at the ends, but not particularly unruly) of the wig style worn by George Hearn in the 1982 filmed version.
• Misanthrope Supreme: Oh definitely. His bitterness and rage at the cards life has given him drives him to become a Serial Killer.
• Morton's Fork: He uses this to justify killing everyone in "Epiphany". There Are Two Kinds of People in the World — "the one staying put in his proper place and the one with his foot in the other one's face" Either you're powerful, because you're evil, and therefore you deserve to die, or you're good, so you're oppressed, and therefore "death will be a relief". To his credit, even in his madness he includes himself in his litany of nihilism — his drive to kill Judge Turpin is the only reason he has to live anymore.
• Motive Decay: He eventually concedes to himself that he's losing interest in ever reuniting with Johanna and at this point is driven almost mechanically by his mission to kill the judge and the beadle. It's subverted, though, when he discovers he's accidentally killed Lucy himself and promptly breaks down and loses his will to live. In the end, it was still about her.
• The Mourning After: Though Mrs. Lovett would dearly love to have him for her own, the only woman Sweeney has ever loved was Lucy, and nothing will sway him from avenging her.
• My God, What Have I Done?: Upon realizing that the beggar woman he killed was his own wife, Lucy Barker.
• Never-Forgotten Skill: Even after having spent fifteen years in an Australian penal colony, he picks up the barber trade again without any difficulty.
• Nice Guy: Used to be a loving father and husband until Turpin had him arrested and shipped off to Australia. In some productions (such as the 2023 revival), there are still flashes of this here and there, which only makes the depravity he's sunken to worse.
• No Doubt the Years Have Changed Me: The Trope Namer, saying it near word-for-word when he reveals himself to Judge Turpin and finally kills him.
• No-Holds-Barred Beatdown: How he deals with Pirelli, but when this doesn’t kill him, he slashes his throat to finish the job.
• Not Distracted by the Sexy: He doesn't seem to really notice Mrs. Lovett's obvious flirting.
• Pay Evil unto Evil: When he kills Judge Turpin, the man who sent him into his downward spiral.
• Pet the Dog:
  • He spares one customer he had intended on killing after learning he had a wife and child, likely due to his own backstory.
  • Near the end of the movie, he catches the disguised Johanna slipping out of her hiding spot after he killed Turpin. He prepares to kill her to prevent any witnesses, and then Mrs Lovett screams. Instead of her running away while Sweeney is distracted, Sweeney lets her go and tells her to forget his face before he runs to help Mrs Lovett.
• Pietà Plagiarism: Sweeney is seen cradling the body of his dead wife at the end. Toby cuts his throat as he does, and Todd remains frozen in that pose in death.
• Prison Changes People: By the start of the musical, fifteen years spent unlawfully imprisoned in an Australian Penal Colony have turned the title character from a naive and "foolish" barber into a bitter, vengeful, and deeply cynical man with no moral qualms about killing to keep his secrets. This is before he snaps and becomes a full-blown Serial Killer, by the way.
• Quirky Curls: In the film, Sweeney returns from prison with wild curly hair.
• Roaring Rampage of Revenge: He spends the entire play on one against Judge Turpin for sending him to Botany Bay on a false charge and for raping his wife.
• Sanity Slippage: After Judge Turpin gets away, he decides that all of humanity either has it coming or would be happier dead anyways.
• Sentenced to Down Under: The judge sent Benjamin off to Botany Bay on a false charge so that he could get at his wife Lucy.
• Serial Killer: What Sweeney becomes after "Epiphany".
• Slashed Throat: He kills all of his victims this way, excluding (in the film) Judge Turpin, who he repeatedly stabs in the throat, and Mrs Lovett, who he pushes into the oven. He eventually falls victim to this himself at the hands of Toby in the film's climax.
• Straw Nihilist: "We all deserve to die! Even you, Mrs. Lovett, even I! Because the lives of the wicked shall be made brief! For the rest of us, death will be a relief! We all deserve to die!"
• That Man Is Dead: He regards his former identity of Benjamin Barker as such:
  Mrs. Lovett: I can't say the years have been particularly kind to you, Mr. Barker.
  Sweeney: No. Not Barker. That man is dead. It's Todd now. Sweeney Todd. And he will have his revenge.
• Took a Level in Cynic: Turpin’s actions cause him to see the world in a much more cruel and nihilistic light.
• Took a Level in Jerkass: Went from family man to a vengeance obsessed nutcase to full on Serial Killer.
• Tragic Dream: Spent 15 years rotting in Australia so he could return to his wife and child, only to find one had poisoned herself and the other was held captive by the man who ruined him.
• Tragic Villain: Though a serial killer by the end of the play, he is also a very sympathetic character who was departed on false charges and returns home to find that everyone he ever cared about has been taken from him.
• The Unfettered: Once, he was a devoted family man with a wife and child. Then Judge Turpin sent him off to Australia and raped his wife. Now, he'll see the judge and anyone who helps him dead at any cost. This especially comes into play after "Epiphany", where he throws off the single fetter of limiting his revenge to just the judge and turns his murderous gaze on the whole of London, if not the entire world.
• Used to Be a Sweet Kid: He used to be a sweet guy in general before Turpin destroyed him just to get his hands on Lucy.
• Villainous Breakdown: He has a couple. The first one comes after he failed to kill the judge the first time, and the second one is when he realizes that he unintentionally murdered his supposedly dead wife.
• Villain Protagonist: He seeks revenge against the man who raped his wife and had him sent away to get at her.
• Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds: While he is a Serial Killer, you can't help but feel sorry for him given what has happened to his family.
• Would Hit a Girl: Slashes the throat and the beggar woman and throws Mrs. Lovett into an open flame at the end of the film.
• Would Hurt a Child: Shows no hesitation to put children like Toby at the end of razor, though he thankfully never gets the chance.

Mrs. Nellie Lovett

Played by: Angela Lansbury (Original Broadway Cast), Patti LuPone (2001 Concert, 2005 Broadway revival), Helena Bonham Carter (2007 film), Imelda Staunton (West End, 2012), Annaleigh Ashford, Sutton Foster (2023 Broadway revival)

Mrs. Nellie Lovett was Benjamin's neighbor a long time ago. She's the owner of a meat pie shop that has fallen on hard times due to the meat shortage in London, and has always had a fondness for Benjamin. She's the one who hits upon the ghoulish idea of disposing of the people that Sweeney murders by baking them into pies in order to drum up some much-needed business for her shop.

---

• Adaptational Attractiveness: Zigzagged; she is described in the libretto as a "vigorous, slatternly woman in her forties", and the "slatternly" (which just means unkempt and/or Really Gets Around) part is fairly open to interpretation, ranging from Angela Lansbury's matronly dustmop to Dorothy Loudon, her first replacement, playing her as simply pretty, and onto to Patti LuPone's 2005 Lovett being The Vamp in torn stockings, Helena Bonham Carter's Unkempt Beauty interpretation, and Annaleigh Ashford's petite, demure-looking blonde striver interpretation. However, in The String of Pearls, the original penny dreadful that began the Sweeney Todd legend in the first place, she is explicitly young and beautiful, which makes all of the portrayals that lean her toward plainness mild Adaptational Ugliness.
• Adaptational Heroism: Her affection for Toby in the movie is a bit more sincere (even including him in her 'By The Sea' fantasy), where in the play he's just the expendable help.
  • In the 2023 revival, she adores Toby from the start. She still realizes the boy has to be disposed of after he realizes Sweeney must have killed Pirelli, but she cries and stammers over her words when she feels pushed to this point.
• Age Lift: In The String of Pearls she's probably in her late twenties, but in the musical she's in her forties, according to the libretto.
• Anguished Declaration of Love: Although she wasn't exactly hiding it previously, she does this during the final sequence of the musical:
  Mrs Lovett: Yes, I lied, 'cause I love you! I'd be twice the wife she was! I love you!
• Ax-Crazy: While rarely partaking in the violence itself, she gleefully convinces Sweeney to start slitting throats and bakes them into pies which she serves to her customers.
• Beauty Is Never Tarnished: Averted with a vengeance in the film. The audience gets a good view of all of her Adaptational Attractiveness literally burning away when Sweeney throws her into the oven.
• Beware the Silly Ones: On the surface, Mrs. Lovett seems like a harmlessly eccentric matron, swatting flies in her pie shop and making witty jokes. Beneath the surface lies the soul of an alarmingly expedient woman who’ll do anything to succeed, including use dead corpses to combat the shortage of meat in her pies.
• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: She's kind and supportive on the outside, but completely amoral on the inside.
• Blasphemous Praise: She makes a minor one in the song "God, That's Good!". A new victim walks into Todd's barbershop just as she's run out of pies, and she sings the line "God watches over us" while literally looking up at Todd and winking at him.
• Bright Is Not Good: Matching Mrs. Lovett’s deceptively cheery and maternal facade is her colorful wardrobe with flashy accessories.
• Clingy Jealous Girl: She wants Sweeney all to herself, going as far as to lie to him about his wife's "death" and hide her existence away from him.
• Cruel and Unusual Death: Burning to death isn’t a good way to go, and the 2007 film highlights this with her body burning to a cinder as she screams in agony.
• Cute and Psycho: Well, how cute she is depends on the actress, but in many versions, she's stunning. And murderously insane (or, alternatively, sane but absolutely lacking in any moral compass whatsoever).
• Deadpan Snarker: The only biting that initially takes place in her shop is her biting remarks about the quality of her pies, which she has no fear of acknowledging. This changes once she starts using human meat, but the sarcasm remains.
• Death by Disfigurement: The film actually shows her burning to death in her oven, and though it's a faster use of this trope than usual, her hair goes up and vanishes in the flames almost immediately as we see her skin start to split and char in gruesome detail.
• Death by Irony: Sweeney throws her into her own oven.
• Dies Differently in Adaptation: The 2005 revival had no real sets, let alone a technically impressive set piece like a prop oven big enough for a person to be thrown into, so Sweeney simply slits Mrs. Lovett's throat like his other victims.
• Eerie Pale-Skinned Brunette: In the 2005 Broadway production, and especially in the movie.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: She more-or-less adopts Toby after Pirelli's death and genuinely grows to care about him. That said, she doesn't think twice about killing him when it becomes necessary, even if she's not overly thrilled about it. Double subverted, since this is mainly out of love for Sweeney.
• Even Evil Has Standards: While she's the one to think of using Pirelli's corpse for her pies, when she initially learns that Sweeney murdered him, she's horrified at his "killing a man what done you no harm!" She does change her tune when she learns that Pirelli planned to blackmail him, though, viewing it as wholly justified in that case.
• Evil Is Petty:
  • Quite apart from the horrible things she and Sweeney do, which aren't petty at all, she spends a surprisingly large amount of time making spiteful jabs at people. During "God That's Good!" she gloats that she's put her rival Mrs. Mooney out of business. Earlier, she scoffs at her over the suspicion that she was using cat meat. Considering what Mrs. Lovett is now including in her pies...
  • She's also regularly schoolyard-bully levels of mean to the beggar woman, including threatening a Literal Ass-Kicking simply for begging around the pie shop and referring to her as "gutter trash". This becomes much worse once it's revealed that the beggar woman is Lucy Barker, reduced to homeless insanity.
• Evil Redhead: She's typically portrayed as a redhead, but her hair color can vary depending on the production. The film practically invokes this, as one part of her prosperity makeover in the second half seems to be dyeing her mousy brown hair auburn.
• Exact Words: She didn't exactly lie to Sweeney about Lucy's "death", as she is quick to point out in the final number:
  Mrs. Lovett: No, no, not lied at all! No, I never lied! Said she took the poison — she did! — Never said that she died!
• Faux Affably Evil: Quite charming and friendly with her customers, but any one of them could end up in a pie and she wouldn't care.
• Friend to Psychos: When she isn't portrayed as utterly batty herself, she falls into type IV of this, by virtue of being madly in love with the serial killer Todd and feeding her unsuspecting customers human meat pies to hide the evidence of his crimes.
• Hopeless Suitor: No matter what she does, Sweeney won't reciprocate her affections — his late wife Lucy is the only woman for him, to Mrs. Lovett's dismay.
• Ignored Enamored Underling: To Sweeney, who has eyes for only things that have passed and a certain judge. Played literally in the movie, where Sweeney never actually looks directly at her UNTIL he finds out she lied about Lucy... and then Mrs. Lovett finally has his attention. She comes to regret it.
• "I Want" Song: "By The Sea" and her part of "My Friends".
• Karmic Death: She's the one who comes up with the idea of cooking and serving Sweeney's victims to customers in order to bolster her fading pie shop, and also basically causes the whole plot and Sweeney's unwitting murder of Lucy due to her lies about the past. Fittingly, when Sweeney finds out just how much she lied to him about, he deceives her into thinking he finally loves her and then chucks her into her own oven while she's still alive to burn to death.
• Kick the Dog: Her singularly nasty treatment of the Beggar Woman whenever the two of them are on scene together is an early indicator that she is much darker than she initially appears to be. Especially when you learn that she knows just who the Beggar Woman actually is.
• Kill It with Fire: Her final fate at the hands of Sweeney, being thrown into and locked in her own oven.
• Lady Macbeth: Downplayed. When Todd returned to London, he had no hope of seeing his family and didn't know what he going to find. It's her revelations of all the things that happened during his absence that spur him into chasing after the Judge, which she probably regrets, seeing as how this keeps him from (in her mind) moving on. Sweeney certainly needs no prodding to turn to murder, but it is her enterprising proposition on how to make use of the bodies that allows him to get away with making a business out of serial murder and cannibalism.
• Literally Loving Thy Neighbor: She has been attracted to Benjamin/Sweeney ever since she was just his neighbor.
• Love Makes You Evil: Everything she does, namely lying to Sweeney about the supposed death of his beloved wife and indirectly causing him to kill her himself, she does for love.
  Mrs Lovett: I was only thinking of you! [...] Better you should think she was dead! Yes, I lied, 'cause I love you!
• Lying by Omission: She claimed Lucy took a poison, but she never said that Lucy died from it.
• Mad Love: She enables Sweeney's serial murders and disposes of his victims by baking them into pies. She continues to make romantic overtures to him despite his obvious disinterest, going so far as to trick him into thinking his wife is dead. He throws her into her own oven to burn to death when he discovers her deception.
• Manipulative Bitch: Depending on how you look at it, she is at heart the cause of Sweeney's madness. This is made more explicit by the end of the story, where it is revealed that she lied to Sweeney about his wife's "death".
• Motor Mouth: In Mrs. Lovett’s introductory song The Worst Pies In London, she goes from talking about how little customers she’s getting, bemoaning the taste of her pies, explaining that the price of meat has increased, and gossiping about how her competitor Mrs. Mooney may be using cats in her pies in a matter of seconds.
• Of Corsets Sexy: In the movie. It's understandable, due to some severe Adaptational Attractiveness.
• Perky Female Minion: In the stage musical, Mrs. Lovett is an enthusiastic and cheerful supporter and accomplice of Todd’s murders. This trope doesn’t apply in the film, where she’s portrayed in a much more deadpan light.
• Pragmatic Villainy: Todd describes her twice as "eminently practical and appropriate as always", and it's shown that Lovett's decisions, evil and otherwise, are based on self-preservation more often than pleasure, though she'll always take an option that allows for both (like cooking Pirelli into a pie—it removes his traces while benefiting her restaurant). Lovett is also seen in the film staying Todd's razor because they're in public, and her affectionate behavior toward Toby becomes all the more disturbing when she shuts it down without too much conflict the second she realizes he's become a liability toward them— she locks him in the basement not long after he swore to forever protect her.
• Psycho Supporter: Mrs. Lovett is often just as nuts as Sweeney is. When she's not, she's ruthlessly, amorally sane, which may be worse.
• Satanic Archetype: Mrs. Lovett is a woman usually depicted with red and sometimes horn-shaped hair who lies to Sweeney and tempts Sweeney into more killings for her own benefit, with her scheme having her baking people in roaring flames. The Beggar Woman, perceiving this, calls her a witch married to the Devil. In the film, the color grading shifts to infernal reds once Lovett's business starts booming and her oven is busy. Lovett also ends the story as an unsympathetic character and dies in the flames of her own oven, being metaphorically sent to burn in Hell for her sins.
• Supreme Chef: Once she gets her hands on some decent meat, that is. Otherwise they're just "the worst pies in London".
• Too Dumb to Live:
  • With a dash of Love Makes You Stupid: to summarize, she has just revealed that she had tricked Todd into thinking his beloved wife had been dead, unknowingly setting the stage for his Accidental Murder of her. Todd, a man defined by his misanthropy and murderous, vengeful fury, responds to this revelation by singing joyously about letting bygones be bygones and learning to forgive and forget. If she hadn't been so over-the-moon at Todd apparently returning her feelings at long last, she would have realized that there was something very, very wrong with the situation and booked it out of there as fast as she could run.
  • Some productions play around with this by having her realising that something is up when Todd suddenly starts preaching forgiveness and either starting to dance with him in an attempt to calm Todd down or else spending her final minutes on stage actively trying to leave, only for Todd to grab her or otherwise prevent her from leaving. Dorothy Louden's Mrs. Lovett would even regularly begin pleading with George Hearn's Todd to let her go as he danced her closer to the oven.
• Took a Level in Idealism: Mrs. Lovett is the sole character in the musical who gains a more positive outlook on life as the story progresses, due to the rising success of her business.
• Ugly Guy, Hot Wife: The movie gives us a quick glimpse of a daguerreotype of a younger Mrs. Lovett and her late husband Albert that shows they were this. She's Helena Bonham Carter, and Albert was apparently a fat, balding old man. No wonder she fell for the handsome young barber upstairs.
• Uncanny Valley Makeup: Sported by Angela Lansbury in the original production◊, to the extent where pictures of her rehearsing in costume with her normal daytime makeup◊ don't even look like the same woman. Later Mrs. Lovetts zigzag this trope- Dorothy Loudon◊ averted it; while June Havoc◊ leaned right back into it.
• Villain Has a Point: Throughout the play and the film, she advises Todd to stop obsessing over the past and move on with his life. Granted, what she really wants is for Todd to move on and start a new life with her, and she's lying about Lucy being dead, but she's also not wrong in suggesting that Todd would be better off if he wasn't fixated on revenge especially as the entire story shows that said goal has brought him no true happiness whatsoever.
• Wicked Witch: Lovett takes some notes from this archetype, often being portrayed as an older woman (she's in her forties according to the libretto) and always portrayed as tempting Todd into evil, evil which gets her called "witch" and "Devil's wife" by the Beggar Woman. She also has influences from witches from fairy tales — namely, the witch from Hansel and Gretel who gets karmically cooked to death in her own people-oven.
• Would Hurt a Child: Despite her reservations about it, she doesn’t ultimately go along with Sweeney’s attempts to kill Toby.
• Yandere: She loves Sweeney dearly. She keeps his wife's existence a secret in order to have him for herself. It doesn't work. It especially doesn't help that she tries justifying herself by saying that she did it because she loved him and that she can be twice the wife Lucy was.

The Beggar Woman

Played by: Merle Louise (Original Broadway Cast), Victoria Clark (2001 Concert), Laura Michelle Kelly (2007 film), Ruthie Ann Miles (2023 Broadway revival)

The Beggar Woman is a mysterious figure that wanders London asking for alms from pedestrians. She is quite mad, and can be quite lewd at times. She seems to know Sweeney quite well, but Sweeney doesn't want anything to do with her.

---

• Beauty Is Never Tarnished:
  • Averted horribly. Fifteen years of poison-induced insanity have not been kind to her at all.
  • That said, some productions do make her an Unkempt Beauty as a clue to her real identity, which is debatably worse.
• Beneath Notice: Not that it was her fault, and Sweeney was told Lucy was gone after all, but if he had taken longer than a minute to look her in the eye, she could have been saved.
• Broken Bird: Poor Lucy was raped and nearly poisoned herself, which failed to kill her and drove her insane instead.
• Chekhov's Gunman: "Hey, don't I know you, mister?" she asks Sweeney. As it turns out, Sweeney does know her. She's his long lost wife.
• Cloud Cuckoolander: Is a bit of a nutter, saying random and crazy things that sometimes turn out to be correct.
• The Cuckoolander Was Right: Nobody but her notices the ominous burning smell and smoke from outside the basement bakehouse.
• Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow: Used for tragic effect in the movie version. When her bonnet comes off after Sweeney kills her, it's possible to finally see that she has unwashed, dirty blonde hair, rather than gray like we might have assumed, revealing her identity as Lucy Barker — but it's also fallen out in clumps, probably from venereal diseases she's caught having to do sex work to survive, leaving her with scabby, bald patches. Considering the association between her beautiful blonde hair and her youth and innocence in Sweeney's mind, it's a powerfully grim metaphor for how far she's fallen.
• Have We Met?: "Don't I know you, Mister?" Doubles as her last words.
• Murder by Mistake: Sweeney murdering her wasn't an accident. He just sure as hell didn't mean to murder her.
• The Ophelia: Thanks to Turpin and the poisoning suicide attempt that followed, she's been reduced to a homeless insane woman who begs for a living.
• Pre-Insanity Reveal: The homeless madwoman that hangs around the barber shop is revealed to be Sweeney's long-lost wife, Lucy. Unfortunately, this isn't revealed — either to Sweeney or the audience — until after he murders her.
• Slashed Throat: By Sweeney, in the play's finalé.
• Split Personality: Is portrayed as having Dissociative Identity Disorder in the 2023 revival. This was an idea developed by her actress, Ruthie Ann Miles.
• Trauma Conga Line: Before the events of the play and the film, she's separated from her husband, raped, and sent to a Bedlam House. During both the play and film, she's treated poorly by everybody except Anthony and is killed by her husband just as she recognizes him.
• Walking Spoiler: The reveal that she's Sweeney's supposedly dead wife at the end of the play makes her this.
• Wham Line: "Do I know you, Mister?"
• Younger Than They Look: For as much as she's referred to as an "old woman", we know that Lucy was still quite a young woman fifteen years ago, even if we don't know exactly how young. She's probably only in her late thirties by the time Sweeney comes back.

Anthony Hope

Played by: Victor Garber (Original Broadway Cast), Davis Gaines (2001 Concert), Jamie Campbell Bower (2007 film), Jordan Fisher, Daniel Yearwood (2023 Broadway revival)

An idealistic young sailor who saved Sweeney's life on board the good ship Bountiful and brought him to London, Anthony is the other protagonist of the story in general. He meets and falls in love with Johanna, Sweeney's daughter, and seeks to free her from her tyrannical guardian, Judge Turpin.

---

• Adaptational Attractiveness: In the movie, he is in his twenties, handsome in a more delicate fashion, and a tenor.
• Adaptational Badass: In the stage play, he couldn’t work up the nerve to shoot Fogg and Johanna needed to snatch the gun to shot him herself. Here, while he still doesn’t shoot him, it’s only because he takes the much more active decision to let Fogg’s victims kill him.
• Adaptational Name Change: His literary counterpart was named Mark Ingestrie.
• Beware the Nice Ones: In the film, he consciously leaves Fogg to be killed by his patients.
• Determinator:
  • Anthony will not give up, ever. Yes, he's enamored with Johanna, but when describing her the first words out of his mouth are "There's a girl who needs my help!" (and given she gave him the key to her house, she definitely wants him to, too). He takes that duty very seriously throughout the story, refusing to be deterred by beatings, threats, or her being shipped off to an insane asylum.
  • The potentially creepy lyrics of 'Johanna' are rendered decidedly sweeter and more genuine with context. Yes, under normal circumstances it would not be particularly romantic to swear you're going to track a young girl down and kidnap her away, and that in the meantime you'll imagine what it would be like to be holding her. When the girl in question is currently huddled in a filthy corner, terrified and alone, however... it can be read less as an unhealthy obsession and more as an oath to a frightened young woman that he's not going to give up on saving her just because their path to freedom has gotten harder.
• Do with Him as You Will: In the movie, after freeing Johanna from Fogg's Asylum, Anthony leaves Fogg at the mercy of his "children."
• Fish out of Water: A lot of portrayals of Anthony make him out to be this, particularly the movie version.
• Horrible Judge of Character: He somehow never realizes that his good friend Mr. Todd is an insane serial killer.
• Idiot Hero: Anthony isn’t the brightest bulb despite being the most unambiguously good character in the entire story. Most damning had to be walking into Todd’s barber shop and loudly announcing his plans to elope with Johanna and not taking the time to see Turpin sitting right in front of him.
• Long-Haired Pretty Boy: In the 2007 film, especially.
• Meaningful Name: He's the most optimistic character in the entire work and his surname is "Hope".
• Mirror Character: He's not that far off from the kind of man Sweeney once was in his former life as Benjamin Barker, but with the crucial difference that while Sweeney is ruled by despair, Anthony- true to his name- is always hopeful and proactive. When he finally realizes that London is a cruel, corrupt place, his response is to break the law to do the right thing, not to wreak revenge.
• Nice Guy: The only character in the whole thing that manages to be both stable and decent.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Anthony's untimely and inadvertent intervention prevents Sweeney from ending his quest of revenge before it can grow out of control, thus leading Todd to slip deeper into darkness and lose grasp of what little of his morals were left. Likewise, him busting into the shop tips the judge off to his plan to rescue Johanna, leading to him imprisoning her in Fogg's Asylum.
• Official Couple: With Johanna.
• Pretty Boy: Bamford even says he has a "pretty little head" while beating him up and threatening him for Turpin in the film.
• Spanner in the Works: Sweeney would have killed Judge Turpin and ended the story right there and then had Anthony, who had recently talked to Sweeney about his plan to elope with Johanna in order to get her away from Turpin, not busted into his shop — with the judge right there in the room — in order to inform Sweeney that he has found Johanna and that she has agreed to the plan. Needless to say, this ends up blowing both the aforementioned plan and Sweeney's attempt to kill Turpin straight to hell.
• Stalker with a Crush: In the 2005 revival, but otherwise completely averted. In "Kiss Me", they plan their escape together, and it’s clear they both have a serious case of Love at First Sight. Johanna can’t wait to elope and marry Anthony right away.
  Anthony:I loved you, even as I was you, even as it didn’t matter that I didn’t know your name.
  Johanna : I loved you, even as I saw you, even as it doesn’t matter that I still don’t know your name.
• Tenor Boy: In the movie. Onstage, surprisingly, he's a baritone (albeit a lyric baritone, with a higher, warmer range than Sweeney).
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom: His busting into Sweeney's shop just as he's about to kill Turpin and revealing that Johanna has agreed to his plan ends up leading not only to Turpin sending Johanna to Fogg's Asylum, but Sweeney's Sanity Slippage and becoming a Serial Killer.
• Wide-Eyed Idealist: As Sweeney tells him near the beginning, "You are young. Life has been kind to you. You will learn." Johanna says a variant of the same thing to him near the end. That said, while he does learn, he takes a decidedly different lesson from it than Sweeney did.
• Wrong Genre Savvy: He fancies himself The Hero of a Rescue Romance, saving the Damsel in Distress Johanna from the clutches of her evil guardian, and expects a Happily Ever After; all this despite being stuck in a grim Slasher Movie set in a Crapsack World. He might get it, but we don't know for sure — and even if he does, Johanna has a lot of emotional damage she's going to need help with. At least he's the kind of guy who will always be willing to do so.

Lucy Barker

Played by: Laura Michelle Kelly (2007 film)

Sweeney's lost wife. After her rape at the hands of Judge Turpin at the masked ball he threw, she committed suicide by poisoning herself.

---

• Bedlam House: She ends up in one instead of a hospital after poisoning herself.
• Bungled Suicide: Her attempt to poison herself led only to the deterioration of her mental state.
• Death Faked for You: Unlike what Mrs. Lovett would have Sweeney believe, Lucy survived her suicide attempt. They should have taken her to a hospital, but instead, she wound up in Bedlam, and her fifteen years Going Among Mad People drove her quite insane.
• Defiled Forever: After her horrific rape and humiliation, she poisoned herself.
• Driven to Suicide: By the arrest and deportation of her husband, followed by her rape at the hands of Judge Turpin. Except she really survived.
• Go Among Mad People: After she was raped by Judge Turpin and drank the arsenic to try to kill herself, Lucy was sent to Bedlam House (the actual one) instead of the hospital, which, along with the effects of the arsenic, drove the woman quite insane, leaving her the crazed Beggar Woman. Mrs. Lovett knew about this all along, and didn't tell Sweeney about it until after he had killed her and recognized her corpse. Needless to say, Sweeney does not take it well.
• Living Emotional Crutch: Sweeney loses his will to live after learning she poisoned herself, with only his desire for revenge and seeing Johanna keeping him going. He gives up entirely after learning he killed her.
• The Lost Lenore: To Benjamin Barker/Sweeney Todd.
• Meaningful Name: Her name specifically her surname, connotes the phrase "barking mad". Lucy herself has fallen into madness after a botched poison suicide and homelessness.
• Posthumous Character: She's long dead by the time Sweeney returns to London. Or not.
• Rape as Drama: As we learn early on, Judge Turpin lured her to a party, plied her with drink, and raped her as the rest of the party guests looked on.
• So Beautiful, It's a Curse: Her beauty is what drew Turpin to her in the first place. If she wasn't so insanely gorgeous, the entire plot never would've happened.
• Trauma Conga Line: Her husband is arrested and sent to Australia on a false charge, she's brutally raped at a ball by the man who sent her husband away, her daughter is taken away from her by her rapist, and she finally poisoned herself. Except that wasn't the end of it, as she actually survived. Instead of sending her to a hospital, Lucy was sent to Bedlam House, which, along with the effects of the arsenic, drove the woman quite insane, leading her to become the crazed Beggar Woman.

Johanna Barker

Played by: Sarah Rice (Original Broadway Cast), Lisa Vroham (2001 Concert), Jayne Wisener (2007 film), Maria Bilbao (2023 Broadway revival)

Sweeney's sixteen-year-old daughter. When she was just one year old, her father was transported for life, and her mother was soon invited to Judge Turpin's mansion. The horrible events of that night would drive her mother to poison herself. She was then taken in by Judge Turpin, who raised her as his own and gave her a sheltered upbringing. Now that Johanna is growing up, she finds her guardian's mansion to be a prison, a cage like the birds whose songs she likes to hear, and she wants more than anything to be free of it. Worse, the Judge, who she has seen all her life as a father, is starting to look upon her with the same hungry eyes that he once looked upon her mother with. When Anthony Hope, a young sailor just arrived in London, catches her eye, the two of them fall in love, and Johanna sees her chance to finally escape.

---

• Adaptational Backstory Change: Johanna's family name in The String of Pearls is Oakley, and she comes from a well-off family where her father is a spectacle maker. In the musical and film, she is the daughter of Benjamin Barker/Sweeney Todd.
• Adaptation Dye-Job: The penny dreadful version has dark hair. The musical and film versions are blonde, though there are alternate lyrics available for if she's played by a woman of color or just someone who isn't blonde.
• Adaptational Wimp: Doesn't shoot Jonas Fogg in the 2007 film. She's also this compared to her counterpart in the original story.
• Alone with the Psycho: Anthony leaves her in Sweeney Todd's parlor, and she sees and hears two people get murdered while she's hiding there. Of course, her guardian for most of her life is a hanging judge, and given her stay in Fogg's, she's accustomed to it by this point.
• Break the Cutie: Johanna is one of the most innocent of the main cast. The events of the play do not treat her well.
• Caged Bird Metaphor: "Green Finch and Linnet Bird" is her singing about how caged birds still sing, and how she sings while in her Gilded Cage. The 2007 film provides the trope image.
  My cage has many rooms, damask and dark
  Nothing there sings, not even my lark
• Demoted to Extra: Johanna investigates her fiance's disappearance, stands up for herself against a reverend and her mother, and braves getting entrance to Sweeney's shop in disguise by herself in The String of Pearls. In the musical, although she's not quite so brave, she is still the second female lead. In the 2007 film, she goes from a lead to an almost silent Living MacGuffin.
• Go Among Mad People: Johanna is thrown into a madhouse by Judge Turpin after he finds out about her plan to elope with Anthony. She's just lucky she doesn't have to spend too much time there unlike her mother.
• Hates Being Alone: After Anthony rescues her, he leaves her in Sweeney's parlor to hire a coach, but only after she begs him not to go without her and he comforts her, saying he'll be back soon.
• The Ingenue: Subverted — living more as Judge Turpin's prisoner (and the target of his perverse lust) than his daughter has left Johanna brittle, anxious, and more than a little cynical, and when Anthony rescues her from the asylum, in the musical she's the one who actually shoots and kills Fogg. She also tosses Anthony the key to her house from her window, and in some productions sleeps with him before she even knows his name!
• Innocent Soprano: Johanna, Sweeney's beautiful and innocent but cloistered young daughter, is a soprano.
• "I Want" Song: "Green Finch and Linnet Bird". It's very much the bittersweet "crushed by life" variant of this kind of song — having spent fifteen years as the ward and essential prisoner of Judge Turpin, all that Johanna dares hope for is the ability to adjust to captivity ("If I cannot fly/Let me sing!").
• Like Mother, Like Daughter: She looks almost exactly like Lucy did, and she also considers poisoning herself to escape Judge Turpin's pursuit before Anthony explains his rescue plan. She also ends up in an insane asylum, just like Lucy did after her suicide attempt, though Johanna is still at least mostly sane when it happens.
  • She has plenty in common with her father, too, as it turns out including murder, though Johanna's is way more justified.
    • The movie even has a moment where Johanna picks up Sweeney's razors and studies her reflection in them while cynically asking if now she's supposed to believe in happy endings and dreams come true.
    Johanna: I've never had dreams. Only nightmares.
• Love Interest: For Anthony.
• Meaningful Name: In the stage show, Johanna's last name serves the same connotation of "barking mad" as she leaves the story with some mental instability.
• The Ophelia: Many performances have Johanna as this by the time Anthony rescues her, if she wasn't already — though she is able to gather up her wits enough to disguise herself as a sailor and play the part.
• Parental Abandonment: Her father was sent away on a trumped-up charge and her mother poisoned herself soon after what happened to her at the Judge's hands, though unknown to her, still alive, when Johanna was just a year old.

Judge Turpin

Played by: Edmund Lyndeck (Original Broadway Cast), Timothy Nolen (2001 Concert), Alan Rickman (2007 film), Jaime Jackson (2023 Broadway revival)

The main antagonist of the play. Judge Turpin is a corrupt judge of London, a man of power with serious problems with controlling his libido around beautiful women. He sent Benjamin Barker off to Botany Bay on a false charge so that he could get at his wife Lucy, whom he ultimately raped at a masked ball he threw. He then adopted Lucy's then one-year-old daughter Johanna as his own, most likely out of remorse for his crime. Unfortunately, the Judge has come to desire Johanna as more than just a daughter with her coming of age. Little does he know that Benjamin has returned, intent upon revenge for Lucy.

---

• Abusive Parents: Adopted Johanna after Lucy’s suicide, and he’s a creeping pervert who watches her dress and plans to marry her to keep him to himself.
• Adaptational Jerkass: He's even worse in the 2007 film, as he also hangs a child for a crime he most likely didn't even commit and asks Beadle Bamford if he was even guilty of anything.
• Adaptational Villainy: The above hanging of a child just server to make Turpin all the more loathsome in the 2007 film.
• Asshole Victim: When Sweeney Todd kills him, it's well-deserved, considering that he's ruined his life and those of many others.
• Big Bad: Turpin is technically the villain of the play, and he puts the plot in motion.
• Composite Character: In the original story, Sweeney Todd was the Big Bad while the older man seeking to marry Johanna was a man named Lupin.
• Depraved Bisexual: He has shades of this in the film. While going through his erotica collection with Anthony, he casually mentions the 'catamites of Greece'. A catamite is a young male prostitute.
• Dirty Old Man: An extremely evil example, being a rapist with an intention to marry his victim's daughter.
• Disco Dan: Subtly so in the movie, which adds a vicious streak of vanity to an already despicable character. While he was deceptively romantically handsome in the past — Alan Rickman is styled in the flashback almost to resemble his performance as Col. Brandon in Sense and Sensibility — in his old age, he still dresses the same, and his clothes, however flattering and beautifully made they might be, are now shabby and worn. This is a change from the stage version, where he's typically simply a doddering, unattractive old man.
• Evil Sounds Deep: He's written as a bass-baritone, and in the movie, he's played by the famously deep-voiced Alan Rickman.
• Faux Affably Evil: He give off the air of a refined gentleman, but in reality he's a sexually depraved bastard who sentences children to death for crimes they might not have even committed.
• Freudian Excuse: "Johanna (Mea Culpa)", his Obsession Song, reveals that Judge Turpin genuinely believes that Sex Is Evil to an extremely unhealthy degree. He regularly flagellates himself as punishment for impure thoughts, and it's suggested that his marrying Johanna is the only way he can think of to "purify" himself. Sondheim himself wrote that without the song, Turpin come across as much more of a one-note villain who is simply evil for evil's sake, as opposed to someone who, though still an utterly loathsome rapist, has at least a shred of reasoning behind his actions.
• Hanging Judge: Turpin's stock in trade. He is decidedly uninterested in whether or not the people called before the stand are guilty or not, as in his view, virtually everyone has done something to warrant a hanging. And that's before you factor in what he does to those he perceives to be in the way of something or someone he wants.
• Hypocrite: Believes himself to be the righteous hand of justice, seeing even condemning an innocent boy to hang as just because he "must’ve done something" while ignoring his own crimes.
• I Have You Now, My Pretty: The climax of the "Poor Thing" scene. Poor Lucy...
• Kangaroo Court: All of Turpin's trials are this way, particularly Benjamin's, where he sentences the man to life in a penal colony for the crime of having a beautiful wife that the judge desires.
• Kick the Dog: Judge Turpin is a dog-kicking machine. He has an innocent barber transported for life so he can get at his wife, then tricks said wife into coming to his mansion (where he has a wild party in progress) so he can rape her. He sentences an eight-year-old boy to death and doesn’t give a damn whether he was innocent. He keeps his adoptive daughter (the daughter of the woman whom he raped) locked in his mansion because he wants her for himself, and even throws the poor girl into a madhouse after she's made it abundantly clear she wants nothing to do with him and wants to marry a sailor boy.
• Knight Templar: He is so obscenely self-righteous that he claims everyone has done something warranting a hanging in reference to an eight-year-old boy he sent to the noose.
• Love Father, Love Son: He lusts after Johanna just as he did with her mother.
• Lust: The judge's principal sin, which sets the entire plot into motion.
• Malevolent Masked Man: Wears a mask as he’s raping Lucy.
• Not So Stoic: Is enraged when learning Anthony planned to elope with Johanna and spends his last moments in shock and horror when he realizes Todd is Barker.
• Obsession Song: "Johanna (Mea Culpa)," which is often cut from productions due to length and possible Squick.
• Oh, Crap!: The judge's reaction when learning just who Sweeney is — just before Sweeney finally kills him.
• Perma-Stubble: He almost never gets a clean shave at any point in the film.
• Pet the Dog: Played a bit straight, then subverted. Lovett states he might have at least a conscience, thus explaining why he raised Johanna as his own. However, he didn't count on falling in lust with Johanna when she grew up, and rationalizes that marrying her is the best way to protect her.
• Rape Is a Special Kind of Evil: What makes him even more loathsome then Todd is his rape of his wife.
• Rasputinian Death: In the film, he's stabbed in the throat multiple times, eventually has his throat slit and is sent falling down a presumably long shaft. Even after that, he manages to survive long enough to grab for Mrs. Lovett's dress before he finally dies.
• Say My Name: "Benjamin Barker?!"
• Sex Is Evil: According to him in his version of "Johanna".
• Sex Is Evil, and I Am Horny: Various productions of the musical have various takes on this. Some make him a more clear-cut example by highlighting his self-loathing, while others make him more one-dimensional.
• Slashed Throat: He is the last to die this way by Sweeney's hand, and in the film, Sweeney is far more savage and vicious when he finally kills him than with any of the others. Sweeney doesn't even actually slash his throat at first. Instead, he stabs him in the throat repeatedly in a fit of rage before finally and coolly performing the throat slash.
• Small Role, Big Impact: While not exactly a "small" role, Turpin actually doesn't have as much stage time as you'd think, considering he's the Big Bad. He pops in and out of several scenes in act one, and is absent for nearly all of act two with the exception of his death scene. He even has less stage time than Beadle Bamford, his henchman! This is even more pronounced when some productions choose to cut his solo "Johanna (Mea Culpa)". However, his impact on the show is obviously immense, and his lack of stage time does not diminish his overall presence in the piece.
• The Sociopath: Turpin is a cold, unfeeling man who only cares about satisfying his lust and dispensing his own self-righteous view of justice.
• The Stoic: The judge is the very picture of composure in both the play and the film. He only loses it on two occasions; the first being when he learns of Johanna's plan to elope with Anthony — from Anthony's own mouth no less! — and when he finally learns exactly who Sweeney is just before Sweeney finally kills him.
• There Is No Kill Like Overkill: Sweeney merely slits his throat in the musical, but in the film, he stabs his throat multiple times before ending him with one big slash. It's the bloodiest death in the the entire movie.
• Villainous Crush: On both Lucy and Johanna.
• White Shirt of Death: The white barber's cloth that covers his body gets splattered with blood when Sweeney stabs him to death.
• Wife Husbandry: His plans for Johanna, having raised her for her entire life and then planning to marry her to keep her away from Anthony.
• Would Hurt a Child: He sentences an eight-year-old boy to hang, and is indifferent about whether he even committed the crime he was accused of.

Beadle Bamford

Played by: Jack Eric Williams (Original Broadway Cast), John Aler (2001 Concert), Timothy Spall (2007 film), John Rapson (2023 Broadway revival)

The right-hand man of Judge Turpin, Beadle Bamford does the main job of carrying out the judge's orders. He is quite easily flattered, but can also be quite cruel.

---

• Adaptational Jerkass: Lacks his daughter in film, shredding his one redeeming quality.
• Alliterative Name: Although "Beadle" is his title and not his first name.
• Asshole Victim: For going along with Turpin’s plan to send Benjamin to Australia on false charges and over being a vicious, sadistic bastard, no sheds any tears when Todd slits his throat..
• Ax-Crazy: Though he’s much more fond of vicious beatings then he is cutting people up.
• The Dragon: To Turpin, as he does all of his bidding.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: He makes mention of a daughter named Annie in the first act, whom he seems to deeply love. The suggestion that he has a normal home life only makes him more unsettling.
• Evil Sounds Deep: Strongly averted. In contrast with Judge Turpin's creepy bass, the Beadle is a countertenor, and hits some extremely impressive notes in the "Kiss Me/Ladies in Their Sensitivities Quartet" and "Parlor Songs" (specifically in Tower of Bray). In fact, during the finale reprise of "The Ballad of Sweeney Todd", he sings in full falsetto alongside Pirelli's tenor. The result is chilling.
• Fat Bastard: In the 1981 recorded production and the movie.
• Faux Affably Evil: In the film, he calmly gives Anthony directions to Hyde Park as he's beating him to a bloody pulp.
• Informed Attribute: He is stated to be a beadle, but given the lack of uniform in the film or any filmed stage production he doesn't seem like one. He is shown doing his job a few times, but without the uniform he bears a stronger resemblance to a Victorian era plainclothes policeman.
• Jerkass: Oh yes. Very much so. He seems to take sadistic pleasure in beating up Anthony after he kicks him out of the judge's house. Not only that, but during the climax of "Poor Thing," he has a big sick grin on his face as he watches Judge Turpin force himself on Lucy.
• Kick the Dog: In the movie, he takes sick pleasure in whipping Anthony, and in the play, he snaps the neck of the poor little bird that was Anthony's gift to Johanna before threatening him with the same if he ever sets foot on their street again. He also carries out the judge's order to throw Johanna into Fogg's Asylum.
• Kick The Son Of A Bitch: The audience certainly doesn't object to Sweeney killing him, but it's also a major Kick the Dog moment in that this is how the secret of the pies is ultimately revealed to Toby, as he falls down the chute and into the evil basement Mrs. Lovett has locked him in.
• Killed Offscreen: Notably, of all the principal characters who are killed over the course of the play, Beadle Bamford is the only one who is killed offstage. The incredibly dramatic reveal of his body, however, is what really catapults the play into its climax.
• No-Holds-Barred Beatdown: Delivers a particularly nasty beat down on Anthony on Turpin’s orders.
• Peek-a-Boo Corpse: In the original Broadway production, the original London production, and the filmed version of the first national tour. After "Parlor Songs", Sweeney escorts Beadle Bamford upstairs to his parlor for a shave and "a splash of bay rum". We shift to Toby in the bake house, as he discovers a black human hair and a bit of fingernail in a meat pie he's been eating. He quickly runs to the door of the bake house, finds it locked, and begins pounding on it and yelling for Mrs. Lovett to let him out. Out of nowhere, the chute door next to him opens up, and the Beadle's body flops out, covered in blood, with a wide-eyed look of terror. This is accompanied by a shrill note from the factory whistle. Seeing this, Toby shrieks and runs off into the darkness of the cellar.
• Pep-Talk Song: "Ladies in Their Sensitivities" qualifies as one, with the beadle pointing out the judge's "less than your best" appearance, and encouraging him to visit Sweeney for a shave and pomade in order to successfully woo Johanna.
• Professional Butt-Kisser: To Judge Turpin. "Ladies in Their Sensitivities" contains many instances of him calling Turpin "My lord."
• Sadist: Enjoys being a bastard, beating up Anthony with a smile on his face. He also smiles while watching a young boy be sentenced to death and while watching Lucy being raped.
• Slashed Throat: Sweeney eventually kills him this way.
• The Sociopath: The low-functioning to Turpin’s high functioning. Bamford enjoys hurting people and goes along with his bosses actions out of pure sadism.
• Sycophantic Servant: Does everything Turpin tells him to do, approves of everything Turpin does, and never questions him.
• Would Hurt a Child: Pretty much hands an eight-year-old boy over to Turpin on a silver platter, watching with glee as the boy is sentenced to death.

Adolfo Pirelli

Played by: Joaquin Romaguera (Original Broadway Cast), Stanford Olsen (2001 Concert), Sacha Baron Cohen (2007 film), Nicholas Christopher (2023 Broadway revival)

Adolfo Pirelli is a street mountebank who proclaims himself to be the king of the barbers and the barber of kings. With the help of his young assistant Tobias Ragg, he sells a "Miracle Elixir" that is exposed by Sweeney as an arrant fraud, "concocted of piss and ink." He is roundly beaten by Sweeney in a contest for the fastest and smoothest shave.

---

• Abusive Dad:
  • Pirelli's treatment of Toby is utterly deplorable, and according to Toby, he's a "good one with the lashings." In fact, if you look closely when he is sharpening his razor, he cuts Toby's hand with every slice.
  • In stage performances that include "The Contest (Part 2)", Pirelli forces Toby to be his tooth-pulling subject, striking him in the face first.
• Adaptational Name Change: His real name in the movie is Davy Collins, while in the stage musical, it's Daniel O'Higgins. Also, in Christopher Bond's original play, his stage name is Alfredo Pirelli, and his real name is Alf Spiral.
• Adaptational Nationality: While his true nationality is revealed to be Irish in the musical, the film changes it to English. In the 2005 Broadway revival, it's implied that he's American.
• Adaptational Skill: Some portrayals (like the movie) have him decent with the shaving razor, though still no match for Todd. Though usually, he's an absolutely pathetic barber, with his volunteer clearly in pain while being shaved.
• Asshole Victim: After his abuse of Toby, can anyone deny that Pirelli is one of the more deserving victims?
• Beneath the Mask: A flamboyant Italian showman to the public; but when he drops the facade he's a down-to-earth Irishman who wants to blackmail his old boss.
• Blackmail Backfire: When Pirelli recognizes Sweeney from the old days when he was Benjamin Barker, he tries to blackmail him, threatening to tell Beadle Bamford about him if he doesn't hand over half his earnings to him every week. This proves to be his biggest mistake.
• Braggart Boss: Did you know he had the honor of shaving the Pope?
• Camp Straight: In the film. Being dressed flamboyantly definitely helps.
• Cross-Cast Role:
  • It's not unheard of for Pirelli to be portrayed by a woman to help balance the sexes slightly better among the principal cast (and as a somewhat easier approach to those high notes, especially for non-professional productions). Most notably, Donna Lynne Champlin took the role in the 2005 Broadway revival. It'd be quite a change-up for Pirelli to actually be switched to a female character, though.
  • Averted in the film, where he is played by Sacha Baron Cohen.
• Cruel and Unusual Death: Gets his head bashed in and is shoved into a box by Sweeney. He’s unfortunately still alive and in agony before Todd finally puts him out of his misery by brutally slitting his throat.
• Dead Man's Chest: After Sweeney kills him, he stuffs his body into a chest to hide it.
• Evil Is Hammy: Quite up to par with Sweeney, as a matter of fact.
• Faux Affably Evil: His ridiculous personality contributes to this. His smiles are fake, and he Would Hurt a Child.
• Fauxreigner: Pirelli is not Italian, but Irish. He was once an Irish boy who Benjamin hired to sweep up hair for a time.
• Funny Foreigner: Superficially. He has the most absurd of accents and costumes, but his cheery, goofy nature is as fake as his Italian nationality.
• Hypocrite:
  • He sings about how being flashy is a bad thing for a barber even though he's showing off while he's singing.
  • He also demands that Sweeney return the five pounds that he lost to him, on the grounds that Todd entered the shaving contest under a false name, as he knows he's really Benjamin Barker. This is rich coming from a guy who spends about 90% of his time using a different name and pretending to be Italian, seemingly allowing everyone to believe that his fake persona is legitimate.
• Incoming Ham: "IIIIIIIIIIIIIII am Adolfo Pirelli, da king-a da barbers, da barber-a kings, e buon giorno, good day!"
• Jerkass: He abuses his child/mentally-handicap assistant and attempts to blackmail Sweeney.
• A Lighter Shade of Black: It speaks to how dark the play is. He cons people into buying a bullshit product, abuses his assistant, tries to blackmail his old boss, and fakes a ridiculous Italian accent. All horrible things, but compared to corrupt ephebophilic rapist Judge Turpin and crazed vengeful Serial Killer Sweeney Todd himself, he doesn't come off quite as awful.
• Not Quite Dead: Sweeney caving his head in with a cast-iron kettle initially seems to kill him, but Pirelli starts twitching when Sweeney goes to check on him. He's just starting to come to when Sweeney does him in with a razor to the throat.
• Slashed Throat: The first of a lot of characters that end up this way.
• Small Role, Big Impact: Out of the nine principal characters, Pirelli has the smallest role by far. He is only in two scenes, and has 'The Contest' and the seconds-long 'Pirelli's Death' as his only songs (not including the Ballad of Sweeney Todd and its reprises). However, his foppish personality, ridiculous accent, and outstanding tenor make him extremely memorable. On top of that, he is the first in an extremely long line of Sweeney's victims. His corpse is also what gives Mrs. Lovett the idea to cook dead bodies into meat pies, and his death leaves Toby, his assistant, working with Sweeney and Mrs. Lovett. His coin purse also ends up becoming a shockingly vital item later in the plot, cluing Toby in that Sweeney is definitely a murderer.
• Snake Oil Salesman: Pirelli's stock in trade is a "miracle elixir" hair tonic, which is actually a combination of piss and ink.
• Too Dumb to Live: His private meeting with a convict (if a completely innocent one) whose profession involves such lethal objects as straight razors, whom he tries to blackmail, doesn't exactly work out for great for him.
• Would Hurt a Child: See Abusive Dad above — when he sharpens his razor on a leather belt at the shaving competition, he casually nicks Toby's hand with each stroke without seeming to notice or care.
• Used to Be a Sweet Kid: He once respected Todd enough to train under him to be a Barber one day, now he’s an abusive con artist.

Tobias Ragg

Played by: Ken Jennings (Original Broadway Cast), Neil Patrick Harris (2001 Concert), Ed Sanders (2007 film), Gaten Matarazzo, Daniel Marconi, Joe Locke (2023 Broadway revival)

Tobias "Toby" Ragg is the young assistant of a street mountebank by the name of Adolfo Pirelli. Depending on the production, he is anywhere from childhood (as in the movie) to teenage, or, in some cases, a mentally handicapped adult with a childlike air about him.

---

• Because You Were Nice to Me: His fondness for Mrs Lovett.
• Beware the Nice Ones: Portrayed as a genuinely sweet kid, and he’s the one to end Sweeny’s rampage by slitting his throat.
• Break the Cutie: By the end of the film, all of the horrible things he's seen and been forced to experiencehave traumatized him for life.
• Children Are Innocent: Besides drinking ale and being forced into advertising for both Pirelli, and later Sweeney and Mrs. Lovett, he is definitely, and surprisingly given his life experiences, an example of this. At least, until he finds out the truth about Mrs. Lovett and Sweeney during the film's climax.
• Corrupt the Cutie: In the film's climax, he slits Sweeney's throat after he realises what he and Mrs. Lovett have done to him.
• Extremely Protective Child: Best evidenced by the song "Not While I'm Around", in which he pledges to protect Mrs. Lovett, his Parental Substitute.
• Go Mad from the Revelation: The revelation that Mrs. Lovett's pies are made from human meat drives him to insanity.
• Happily Adopted: Tragically subverted. He's under the care of Adolfo Pirelli, who is an Abusive Dad. Then subverted again when, after Pirelli's death, he's adopted by Sweeney and Mrs. Lovett. Even though she seems to care for him to a certain extent, they are both willing to kill him if they have to.
• I Am a Humanitarian: Accidentally, thanks to eating the pies cooked by Mrs Lovett. When he realises this, he becomes shocked and distraught, leading to his Sanity Slippage and Beware the Nice Ones moments.
• Kid Sidekick: When he's not played as an intellectually disabled adult.
• Nice Guy: He’s a sweet kid who cares greatly for Mrs. Lovett after she takes him in.
• Sanity Slippage: Played straight in the play. Heavily implied (to a lesser extent) in the film, seeing as how he ends up slitting Sweeney's throat.
• Slashed Throat: The climax has him doing this to Sweeney himself, and in the film, he serves it up with stone-cold silence.
• Undying Loyalty: To Mrs. Lovett. Even after he learns she's been making pies out of human remains and she tries to kill him along with Todd, he still is angered by her death.

Mr. Fogg

Played by: Robert Ousley (Original Broadway Cast), Philip Philmar (2007 film), Simeon Truby (West End, 2012), Stephen Tewksbury (2023 Broadway revival)

The corrupt head of the local insane asylum who is in league with Judge Turpin.

---

• Asshole Victim: In the original musical, he was fatally shot by Johanna. In the 2007 adaptation, he was left in mercy of his inmates, presumably mauling him to death.
• Baby Talk: How he speaks to his wards, offering them "sweeties" when they behave.
• Bedlam House: The sort of establishment he runs.
• Dies Differently in Adaptation: In the original play, Fogg was shot by Johanna. In the 2007 movie, he gets killed by a mob of his inmates after Anthony leaves him in the cell.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: However he dies, it's always at the hands of at least one of the inmates he mistreated.
• Ironic Echo: A very odd version. When Anthony raises his pistol he shouts, "Stop, Mr. Fogg, or I'll fire!" Mr. Fogg's immediate response (and final words) are, "Fire, and I will stop!"
• Parental Substitute: Considers himself one, calling his inmates "my children." They certainly don't agree, and are quick to either murder him and/or gleefully escape the asylum after his death.
• Shear Menace: In the stage play, he advances on Anthony with his scissors before Johanna shoots him.

---