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 Sweeney The Sweeney The Sweeney is a 1970s British television police drama focusing on two members of the Flying Squad, a branch of the Metropolitan Police specialising in tackling armed robbery and violent crime in London. It was made by Thames Television for broadcast on the ITV network. The programme's title derives from 'Sweeney Todd', which is Cockney rhyming slang for "Flying Squad". It starred John Thaw as Detective Inspector Jack Regan and Dennis Waterman as his partner, Detective Sergeant George Carter. Such was its popularity in the UK that it spawned two feature film spin-offs, "Sweeney!" and "Sweeney 2". The