Broadcast: January 28, 1946

Starring: Basil Rathbone, Nigel Bruce, Harry Bartell, Anthony Boucher, Dean Fossler, Petri Wines, Dennis Green, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Added: Jan 29 2023

The story began on a winter’s night in 1896. Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson had gone to a theatre in the east end of London to see a performance of a famous old English melodrama called Sweeny Todd the Demon Barber of Fleet Street. The story of a murderer of a raucous appetite who placed his victims in a specially constructed barbers chair, cut their throats and then pressed a lever that would spring the chair over and decamp the unfortunate victim in a horrible cellar beneath his shop.

As they sat in their private box waiting for the last act to begin, a note arrived from Humphreys, the play's Actor Manager asking them to come to his dressing room after the performance. It declared that his sanity, Humphrey's that is, and even the safety of London could be at risk…

Suggest by an incident in the Arthur Conan Doyle story The Yellow Face.