The parental guidelines to Sweeney Todd

[icarus]

I'm writing the parental guidelines to the the musical Sweeney Todd. I've only a paragraph or two to describe the possible offensive content.

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

The story revolves around a murderer whose wife was raped and who cooks his victims in pies.

Comments

[goseaward.livejournal.com]

Ahem.

*g*

As it turns out, a barber in London in the...sixteenth century?...actually did kill people and have them baked into pies. But that's about all the detail we have on him.

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

Yes, he's for real. The story was based on an actual news account. Apparently he did it for money instead of revenge.

Icarus

[spyofsorrow.livejournal.com]

No way. The article I read stated that this guy was fictional. People believed he was real, because it was written in the news. The news contained a lot of fictional stories called "Penny Murders". People loved to read them.

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

It was long believed that he was fictional, invented by the writers of "Penny Dreadfuls" (also called "Penny Bloods" and "Penny Murders") - little 8-page newspapers that contained only fiction that were mostly read by teens.

The original story versions (one of the earliest was called "String Of Pearls") claimed it was "based on fact!" though the Penny Dreadfuls had such a low reputation people didn't actually believe it. A researcher dug into the origins of Sweeney Todd and discovered the writer had snagged his idea from a real news account. There is little resemblance between Sweeney and the original barber however.

Icarus