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Tobias "Toby" Ragg
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Tobias "Toby" Ragg is a fictional character who appears in various adaptations of the story Sweeney Todd.In the penny dreadful The String of Pearls, Tobias Ragg is the apprentice of Sweeney Todd – a barber who murders his customers. Sweeney Todd has him committed to a lunatic asylum after Tobias finds proof of Todd's guilt and decides to contact the police. He eventually escapes, is involved in Todd's arrest, and as the story ends goes into the service of Johanna's husband-to-be Mark Ingestrie. Tobias Ragg was also the young apprentice of Todd in the 1936 film version of Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street.
In the Stephen Sondheim musical Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, Toby is the apprentice of Signor Adolfo Pirelli, a barber who was once an apprentice of Todd. Pirelli pretends to be Italian, and sells some fake potions for hair, made of "piss and ink". Toby is hired by Mrs. Lovett after Todd kills Pirelli. Toby becomes deeply attached to Mrs. Lovett, thinking of her as a surrogate mother; when he discovers that Todd have been killing customers for Mrs. Lovett to bake into meat pies, however, he goes insane with horror and shock. After seeing Todd kill Mrs. Lovett, a vengeful Toby emerges from the sewers where he was hiding and slashes Todd's throat with his own razor.
It is of interest to note that Tobias originally was to be played on stage as an adult, albeit a mentally handicapped one; Ken Jennings, who originated the Broadway role, was 31 on opening night, and Neil Patrick Harris was 27. The movies are the only versions of the story in which Tobias is an actual child; Ed Sanders was 14 years old in the 2007 movie.
In the 2013 novel Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, Tobias is a minor character, a young orphan wrongly imprisoned for murder and rape, later freed by Inspector Baxter.
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Filmography of Tobias "Toby" Ragg (1 films)
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, 1h56Directed by Tim Burton
Origin USA
Genres Drama, Horror, Musical
Themes Inspiré de l'univers des contes et légendes, Films about magic and magicians, Films about music and musicians, Théâtre, Serial killer films, Musical films, Films based on plays, Films based on musicals
Actors Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter, Alan Rickman, Timothy Spall, Jayne Wisener, Sacha Baron Cohen
Rating72%
In 1846, a barber named Benjamin Barker arrives in London, accompanied by sailor Anthony Hope ("No Place Like London"). Fifteen years earlier, he had been falsely convicted and sentenced to penal transportation from London by the corrupt Judge Turpin, who had lusted after Barker's wife Lucy ("The Barber and His Wife"). Barker adopts the alias "Sweeney Todd" and returns to his old Fleet Street shop, situated above Mrs. Nellie Lovett's meat pie shop ("The Worst Pies in London"). From her, he learns that Turpin raped Lucy, who then poisoned herself with arsenic. The couple's daughter, Johanna, is now Turpin's ward, and, like her mother before her, the object of Turpin's lust ("Poor Thing"). Todd vows revenge, and re-opens his barber shop after Mrs. Lovett returns his straight razors to him ("My Friends"). While roaming London, Anthony becomes enamored of Johanna, but is caught by Turpin and driven away by his corrupt associate, Beadle Bamford ("Green Finch and Linnet Bird", "Alms! Alms!", "Johanna").