Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street in serialized Victorian popular fiction, known as "penny dreadfuls". A story called "The String of Pearls" was published in a weekly magazine during the winter of 1846-47. Set in 1785, the story featured as its principal villain a certain Sweeney Todd and included all the plot elements that were used by Sondheim and others ever since. The murderous barber’s story proved instantly popular – it was turned into a play before the ending had even been revealed in print. An expanded edition appeared in 1850, an American version in 1852, a new play in 1865. By the 1870s, Sweeney Todd
Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street Globe Award for Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy. Stephen Sondheim believes that "Sweeney Todd" is a story of revenge and how it consumes a vengeful person. He has asserted, "…what the show is really about is obsession." Unlike most previous representations of the story, the musical avoids a simplistic view of devilish crimes. Instead, the characters’ “emotional and psychological depths” are examined, so that Sweeney Todd is understood as a victim as well as a perpetrator in the ‘great black pit’ of humanity. Sondheim's score is one of his most complex, with orchestrations by his long-time collaborator Jonathan