Tuesday, 18 August 2020

Have You Ever Heard Of Sweeney Todd?

the demon barber of Fleet Street,


 the original Sweeney Todd debuted as a fictional character in 1846, in a magazine known as a penny dreadful, but was there ever was a real Sweeney Todd? As you can see here, there was a Sweeney Todd hair salon at 152 Fleet Street! good advertising, or perhaps no knowledge of the real Sweeney Todd? the barbershop pictured above was photographed sometime in the 1920s, you can read more about it at Londonist, and while there are plenty of Barbershops and salons named after Sweeney Todd today, none of them are on Fleet Street in London, image source: Old Photos of Essex Kent & London, if you are unfamiliar with the story, here is a short version of events from Wikipedia,

Todd is a barber who murders his customers and turns their bodies over to Mrs. Lovett, his partner in crime, who bakes their flesh into meat pies. His barber shop is situated in Fleet Street, London, next to St. Dunstan's church, and is connected to Lovett's pie shop in nearby Bell Yard by means of an underground passage. Todd dispatches his victims by pulling a lever while they are in his barber chair, which makes them fall backward down a revolving trapdoor and generally causes them to break their necks or skulls on the cellar floor below. If the victims are still alive, he goes to the basement and "polishes them off" by slitting their throats with his straight razor.

a Fleet Street haircut, like no other!



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