One thing I don't get in Sweeney Todd...

[COOOOLkid]

Posted: 8/22/06 at 4:56am

Okay, when Mrs. Lovett and Sweeney are looking for Toby in the bakehouse, where exactly is Toby? I mean, the bakehouse can't be THAT big, can it? I can't imagine the pieshop owner having a bakehouse so big you'd be able to play hide and seek in there...


I know it's such a small pointless thing I don't really fully understand...

[mijofly19]

Posted: 8/22/06 at 7:27am

Mrs. Lovett doesn't know where Toby is. If she didn't want Sweeney to know that Tobias knows, she never would have told him.

In the older productions, I believe that Toby has hidden in a crate in the bakehouse, much like Johanna hides in Sweeney's parlor.

Posted: 8/22/06 at 7:58am

speaking of, what do you suppose becomes of Joanna after she runs out of Sweeney's?

[mijofly19]

Posted: 8/22/06 at 8:00am

In some of the older versions, she returns to the pie shop with Anthony when Toby says "You can't come in here..." So I assume she found Anthony.

[aspiringactress]

Posted: 8/22/06 at 9:32am

Alos re the first question, basements in London used to connect to other buildings' basements.

In the actual crimes that Sweeney is based around, Mrs. Lovett and Sweeney shared interconnecting basements which is where the bodies would change hands from Sweeney to Lovett.

So it could very well be a huge cavernous space.

[GYPSY1527]

Posted: 8/22/06 at 10:31am

Besides it being very cavernous, this was also the 17th/18th century where you only had a candle to guide your way in those dark and musty basements. Before I went to London last summer(in which I had the opportuntiy to tour fleet street and the temple church), I researched the topic and found a picture that might give you an idea of what it looked like.
http://www.crimelibrary.com/serial_killers/weird/todd/shop_5.html

You can certainly imagine those bakehouses which were interconnecting and under old churches to be like that.

[Sumofallthings]

Posted: 8/22/06 at 2:00pm

Completely believable considering you could hide in my basement for years and it's not even that big. All you need is a lot of junk.