Original Broadway Cast of Sweeney Todd & Len Cariou
Len Cariou, Victor Garber & Merle Louise
Len Cariou
Angela Lansbury
Angela Lansbury
Len Cariou & Angela Lansbury
Original Broadway Cast of Sweeney Todd
Sarah Rice
Sarah Rice, Victor Garber & Merle Louise
Victor Garber
Original Broadway Cast of Sweeney Todd
Joaquin Romaguera
Original Broadway Cast of Sweeney Todd
Angela Lansbury
Cris Groenendaal, Frank Kopyc & Richard Warren Pugh
Edmund Lyndeck
Sarah Rice & Victor Garber
Jack Eric Williams, Edmund Lyndeck, Victor Garber & Sarah Rice
Len Cariou & Edmund Lyndeck
Len Cariou & Angela Lansbury
Len Cariou & Angela Lansbury
Original Broadway Cast of Sweeney Todd & Ken Jennings & Angela Lansbury & Len Cariou
Len Cariou, Victor Garber, Merle Louise & Sarah Rice
Len Cariou & Angela Lansbury
Original Broadway Cast of Sweeney Todd & Victor Garber & Len Cariou
Ken Jennings & Angela Lansbury
Jack Eric Williams, Angela Lansbury & Ken Jennings
Original Broadway Cast of Sweeney Todd
Original Broadway Cast of Sweeney Todd
When Todd asks about her empty upstairs apartment, she reveals that its former tenant, Benjamin Barker, was transported out of England on false charges by Judge Turpin, who, along with his servant, Beadle Bamford, then lured Barker’s wife Lucy to the Judge’s home and raped her. Todd’s reaction revea...
[TODD, spoken]
Isn't that a room up there over the pie shop? If times are so hard, why don't you rent it out? That should bring in something.
[MRS. LOVETT, spoken]
Up there? Oh, no, I don't go near it. People think it's haunted. You see, years ago, something happened up there, something not very nice.
(sung)
There was a barber and his wife
And he was beautiful
A proper artist with a knife
But they transported him for life
And he was beautiful...
(spoken)
Barker, his name was—Benjamin Barker.
[TODD, spoken]
Transported? What was his crime?
[MRS. LOVETT, spoken]
Foolishness...
(sung)
He had this wife, you see
Pretty little thing
Silly little nit
Had her chance for the moon on a string—
Poor thing
Poor thing
There were these two, you see
Wanted her like mad
One of 'em a Judge
T'other one his Beadle!
Every day they'd nudge
And they'd wheedle!
But she wouldn't budge
From her needle
Too bad
Pure thing
So they merely shipped the poor blighter off south, they did
Leaving her with nothing but grief and a year-old kid
Did she use her head even then? Oh no, God forbid!
Poor fool
Ah, but there was worse yet to come
Poor thing
(spoken)
Johanna, that was the child's name... Pretty little Johanna...
[TODD, spoken]
Go on.
[MRS. LOVETT, spoken]
My, you do like a good story, don't you?
(sung)
Well, Beadle calls on her, all polite
Poor thing
Poor thing
The Judge, he tells her, is all contrite
He blames himself for her dreadful plight
She must come straight to his house tonight!
Poor thing
Poor thing
Of course when she goes there
Poor thing, poor thing
They're having this ball all in masks
There's no one she knows there
Poor dear, poor thing
She wanders tormented and drinks
Poor thing
The Judge has repented, she thinks
Poor thing
"Oh, where is Judge Turpin?" she asks
He was there, all right—
Only not so contrite!
She wasn't no match for such craft, you see
And everyone thought it so droll
They figured she had to be daft, you see
So all of 'em stood there and laughed, you see
Poor soul!
Poor thing!
[TODD, spoken]
No! Would no one have mercy on her?
[MRS. LOVETT, spoken]
So it is you, Benjamin Barker!
Poor Thing was written by Stephen Sondheim.
Poor Thing was produced by Thomas Z. Shepard.
Angela Lansbury released Poor Thing on Tue Apr 17 1979.
From Sondheim’s Finishing the Hat:
Mrs Lovett is chattering away as she did before, but this time with a purpose: She thinks she has recognized Sweeney as Benjamin Barker .. and is driving him into a fury of remembrance. Instead of the meandering of her first song, this one takes on a calculated re...