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
The Tale of Sweeney Todd Ireland. Prior to broadcast, the film had its world premiere at the Hamptons International Film Festival in October 1997. In his review in "New York", John Leonard said, "Much as I’d have imagined that yet another version of "The Tale of Sweeney Todd" would be at best inadvisable, Kingsley... is a class-war wonder to behold... Even more of a surprise than Kingsley’s performance is that director John Schlesinger, so very serious in movies like "Midnight Cowboy" and "Marathon Man", would have so much fun with this blackest of humors." Daryl Miller of the "Los Angeles Times" stated, "It is made