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Tod Slaughter played Sweeney Todd more than 4,000 times before being found dead in his boarding house after performing his last show on the stage of the Derby Hippodrome. John Stonehouse worked there at the time. Now living in France, he thought readers might be interested in the tale.

The launch of the new film, Sweeney Todd – The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, starring Johnny Depp, brought back a part of my past.

One of the last shows I worked on at the Hippodrome, in Derby, was Tod Slaughter’s Maria Marten or Murder in the Red Barn.

Tod Slaughter was an old actor manager who revived Victorian melodramas, including Sweeney Todd. He was in the 1936 film of Sweeney Todd and, I believe, he played the part more than 4,000 times on stage.

I thought readers might be interested to learn that his last show took place on the stage of the Derby Hippodrome the evening before he was found dead in his boarding house.

I had a part-time job as a stagehand under the stage manager, Bill Harris. It was a Saturday night and I had to move the actor’s bags down to the lorry for transporting to the station.

Tod Slaughter gave me a tip and, after we heard of his demise, I told Bill Harris that I must have been the last person he ever tipped. Bill replied that I probably was also the first.

Tod Slaughter was born Norman Carter Slaughter in Newcastle on March 19, 1885, and died of coronary thrombosis on February 19, 1956.

He was survived by his wife, Jenny Lynn, who regularly acted alongside him.

I remember it well as it happened one month before I went to do my National Service in the Royal Navy. I took the job at the Hippodrome for a few months after leaving Derby Central School.

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County:  Derbyshire

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