Radio theatre.
Written, produced and directed by Yuri Rasovsky. — Read by Rosalind Ayres, Robertson Dean, Martin Jarvis etc.
According to legend, Sweeney Todd had his barber shop at number 186 Fleet Street, next door to St. Dunstan's Church, just a few blocks away from the Royal Courts of Justice. On this site, they say, he robbed and murdered more than 150 customers. To dispose of their remains, he carried them through underground tunnels to the bakery of one Mrs. Lovett a few blocks away, where they supplied the stuffing for her meat pies, the favorite mid-day repast of the lawyers who worked nearby and got their shaves from Sweeney Todd. The man you lunched with yesterday could be your lunch today!
The story first appeared in 1846 as a best-selling "penny dreadful," a sensational thriller published in installments. Before the final chapters even had a chance to hit the stands, the first stage version was packing them in at the Royal Britannia Saloon. Since then there have been numerous stage and literary versions of the story.
Yuri Rasovsky (born July 29, 1944 in Chicago, Illinois) is an American award-winning writer and producer working in the field of audio theater (aka radio drama) in the United States.
He founded and operated The National Radio Theater of Chicago from 1973 to 1986 and later formed the Hollywood Theater of the Ear (since 1993). In the 1990s, he forsook radio for audiobooks. Many of his radio plays have been published as commercial recordings or as Internet downloads. His new plays are being released by Blackstone Audio. He currently resides in Los Angeles with actress/narrator Lorna Raver.
The String of Pearls: A Romance is the title of a fictional story first published as a penny dreadful serial 1846-47. The main antagonist of the story is the infamous Sweeney Todd, "the Demon Barber of Fleet Street", who here makes his literary debut.
Todd is a barber who murders his customers and turns their remains into meat pies, sold at the pie shop of his partner in crime: Mrs. Lovett. Todd's barber shop is situated in Fleet Street, London, next to St. Dunstan's church, and is connected to Mrs. 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, generally causing them to break their necks or skulls. In the event they are alive, he goes to the basement and "polishes them off" by slitting the victim's throat with his straight razor. Todd has a young assistant named Tobias Ragg.