Judge Sam Turpin, also known as Lord Turpin, is the main antagonist of the 1979 musical Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street and its 2007 film adaptation of the same name. He is a corrupt judge who ruined the life of innocent barber Benjamin Barker and is thus indirectly responsible for his transformation into the serial killer Sweeney Todd.
Personality
Judge Turpin is an extremely malevolent, cruel, and diabolical man. He is deceitful and manipulative, as he ruined the life of Sweeney Todd by sending him away and later raping his wife. Despite his villainous tendencies, he is also highly elegant, polite, and sophisticated. Destroying Sweeney’s life was his fatal weakness which led to his demise at the hands of his enemy.
He is motivated largely by his puritanical devotion to the law, and by his sexual obsession. He is partly aware of his own perversion, as in one musical scene, not included in the Tim Burton film, and left out of some theatrical productions, he watches Johanna through a keyhole while whipping himself, trying to purify his thoughts of her. Sondheim admits in his collected lyrics that he implied the judge finds sexual release during this moment. At the end of the song, the Judge decides to marry Johanna, believing she is the only person who can “cure” him from his lust.
Biography
Judge Turpin first appeared when he had Benjamin Barker arrested, due to his infatuation with Barker’s wife Lucy. He exiles Barker to Australia on false charges. Lucy is heartbroken, and becomes a recluse, never coming down from her home. Judge Turpin continuously pursues her, sending her flowers each day. He sends his right-hand Beadle Bamford to summon her to his home, “blaming himself for her dreadful plight”. At his house, during a masque ball, where he rapes a drunk Lucy, who later tries to kill herself by drinking poison, though she survives and is driven insane before being reduced to begging in the street.
Turpin then takes Barker’s infant daughter Johanna and raises her as his ward. He keeps her locked away from the world and spies on her through a peephole in her wall (film only). When Johanna turns sixteen, Turpin offers her his hand in marriage. She refuses, to which he seems baffled. When he spots a young sailor named Anthony Hope with Johanna, he threatens to kill him if he ever returns. Turpin is later seen sentencing a child to be hanged for petty crimes.
On Bamford’s advice, he goes for a shave at Sweeney Todd’s barbershop, in order to impress Johanna. Unbeknownst to Turpin, Todd is in fact Barker, who returned from Australia and is hell-bent on revenge. Todd is about to cut Turpin’s throat when he is interrupted by Anthony, who reveals Johanna’s plan to escape. Turpin promptly leaves, renouncing Todd’s business. Turpin returns home and commits Johanna to an insane asylum, telling the owner Jonas Fogg that she is mad and he agrees to keep her there until she agrees to marry Turpin.
Turpin receives a letter (from Toby in the film, someone else in the musical) claiming that Johanna has repented, and only wants his love. He is delighted, and following the direction of the letter, he goes to Todd’s shop, where he is persuaded to have a shave. During the shave, Todd talks about the two’s similar tastes in women, and asks him if he recognizes him. Turpin realizes Todd’s true identity, before Todd repeatedly stabs Turpin in the neck before slitting his throat. He then drops Turpin down the chute. Before he bleeds to death, Turpin grabs at Todd’s accomplice Mrs. Lovett when she discovers him lying on her cellar floor.
Trivia
The judge’s character greatly resembles Archdeacon Claude Frollo from The Hunchback of Notre Dame, in how he used his power and influence to acquire the love of a woman he lusts after, despite her despising him, and how he also uses his position over the title character to cause him great grief and pain.
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