Sherlock Homes Essay Example for Free

Sherlock Homes Essay Sweeney Todd is the story of a barber and his partner in crime, Mrs. Lovett. Sweeney is a fictional villain/hero. The story is considered to be fiction but there are rumors that it is based off of a historical event, though there has been no convincing evidence (Haining 1979, BBC 2005, and Duff 2006) . The story dates from around the mid 1800s and is an early example of a serial killer. The tale was found to originate in a penny serial entitled, The String of Pearls; a Romance from Edward Lloyds The Peoples Periodical and Family Library. The String of Pearls was eventually published as a complete book and gained the title The Barber of Fleet Street. A Domestic Romance (PBS 2006). The very first stage performance of This tale was done as a melodrama in 1847. George Dibben Pitt adapted the serial as a melodrama and the story tool the stage at Hoxtons Britannia Theatre. In 1963 a film version of Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street was produced. Sweeney Todd has also made an appearance in an episode of The New Adventures of Sherlock Homes; The Strange Case of the Demon Barber. The motive behind Sweeney Todd’s acts is not revealed until a stage adaption in 1973 when a playwritgh Christopher Bind Gave Sweeney a back story (PBS 2006). He was a wronged baber returned to England after 15 years of exile. He discovers his wife is dead and his enemy, the judge, has adopted his daughter with plans to marry her. Sweeney eventually teams up with Mrs. Lovett, his neighbor from downstairs and they begin a successful business. He as a barbar, killing some of his customers, and she makes pies using his dead customers as filling. All of his actions are focused on killing the judge. It wasn’t until 1979 that Sweeney Todd was adapted into full musical theater regalia. Stephen Sondheim and Hugh Wheeler adapted Bond’s stage version in to a successful Broadway musical starring Len Cariou as Sweeney Todd and Angela Lansbury as Mrs. Lovett, his partner in crime (Sondheim 1979). Over the years more adaptations have been produced for stage and television. Sweeney Todd arrived in movie theaters for a second time in 2007. Tim Burton adapted Stephen Sondheim’s musical for the big screen with Johnny Depp starring as Sweeney Todd and Helena Bonham-Carter as Mrs. Lovett (Burton 2007). A current trend in the entertainment sector is to adapt musical theater into movies. Sweeney Todd follows in the footsteps of Chicago and Dreamgirls. All three award winning musical shows have been adapted into popular movies. Sweeney Todd has much more history than these other shows and it is unknown if this fictional barber is based on real life events or just a fantastic and thrilling story. While the movie does a credible job of adapting the plot of Sweeney Todd one of the large differences between the film and musical is secondary character development. The musical’s plot focuses around Sweeney Todd and his partner in crime Mrs. Lovett but you are also presented with the stories of Pirelli, the beadle, Joanna and Anthony, the judge and Sweeney Todd’s wife or as we find out at the end, the beggar woman. The movie incorporates these characters and bits of their stories. However their full story is not disclosed in the movie resulting in some stilted characters and underdeveloped plot lines, at least compared to the musical.