London in the Eighteenth Century was dirty, overcrowded, poor, diseased, unjust, violent and corrupt. It was as struggle to survive, let alone to be happy. This is the story of one man's struggle for happiness. It was a struggle that cost many other men their lives.
London, 1765. After twenty years in Newgate Prison for a crime he didn't commit, Sweeney Todd has built himself a flourishing business as a barger-surgeon. Quiet and reserved his life is lonely but unremarkable until a chance encounter with a customer, a gaoler from Newgate, turns Sweeney's world upside donw. Unable to contain twenty years of fury, Sweeney kills the man who has been boasting of the ill treatment of children in the prison. Distraught at what he has done, Sweeney disposes of the body in the river and waits with trepidation for the newly formed police force to catch him. But other than one enquiry from Matthew Payne, a Bow Street runner working for Sir John Fielding, Sweeney is left to deal with his guilt alone.