Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street Hope and the mysterious Sweeney Todd, whom Anthony has recently rescued at sea and befriended, dock in London. A beggar woman sexually solicits them, appearing to recognize Todd for a moment ("No Place Like London"), and Todd shoos her away. Todd relates some of his troubled past to Anthony: he was a naive barber, banished by a crooked judge who lusted after Todd's wife ("The Barber and His Wife"). Leaving Anthony, Todd enters a meat pie shop on Fleet Street, where the owner, the slatternly widow, Mrs. Lovett, laments the scarcity of meat and customers ("Worst Pies in London"). When
Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street into the pie shop's basement bakehouse. Casually slitting his customers' necks, Todd despairs of ever seeing Johanna, while Anthony discovers that Johanna is missing ("Johanna–Quartet"), locked away in a madhouse by the Judge. After a day of hard work, Mrs. Lovett envisions a seaside retirement ("By the Sea"), but Todd remains fixated on his revenge. Anthony arrives to beg Todd for help to free Johanna, and Todd, revitalized, devises a plan to rescue her by having Anthony pose as a wigmaker intent on purchasing inmates' hair ("Wigmaker Sequence" and "The Ballad... – Reprise 4"). Todd later sends a secret letter