The Penny Dreadful Hour: A Feast of Early-Victorian Street Literature and Stories

Just a quick update! After "dogfooding" last Saturday's episode, Prof. Flash has concluded that — the "Dreadful Dossiers" slow things down too much ... so does having Sweeney Todd and Varney the Vampyre back-to-back ... dogfooding is great and P.F. highly recommends the same to all fellow creative professionals! Be sure to join us this Saturday for the next full episode of the Penny Dreadful Story...

Join Professor Flash, a.k.a. Finn J.D. John. for a 90-minute spree through the story papers of old London! Grab a flicker of blue ruin, unload your stumps, and let's go! 0:03:45: DREADFUL-DOSSIERS REPORT — A 10-minute briefing on how The Barber of Fleet-street; or, The String of Pearls (feat. Sweeney Todd) came to be. 0:14:00: SWEENEY TODD, Ch. 43 — We open on Mr. Todd getting a letter from Mr...

FIRST — in Flash Academy, we'll learn what blowing the gab, drawing a cork, cat lap, "as right as a trivet," and Captain Flasham meant, in highwaymen's slang. THEN — we hit five different story papers from the Golden Age of Penny Dreadfuls in old London! IN SWEENEY TODD, Ch. 41-42 (starts at :06 mins.)— Sir Richard Blunt and Mr. Crotchet find some very singular things in Sweeney Todd’s house, incl...

A mid-week catch-up to get the numbers right means we've got Chapter 3 of our three newest Dreadfuls coming your way! IN BLACK BESS; OR, THE KNIGHT OF THE ROAD: Dick Turpin foils the woodman's treachery, then discovers a sinister secret beneath the floor of his strange forest hut ... IN SPRING-HEEL'D JACK, THE TERROR OF LONDON: Jack turns the tables on his two pursuers and leaves them...

FIRST — in Flash Academy, we'll learn what high pads, glims flashy, high flyer, drawing a long bow, and hopping the twig meant, in highwaymens' slang. THEN — we plunder five different story papers! In Sweeney Todd Ch. 39 and 40 — Sir Richard Blunt rents an attic room in the building next to Sweeney Todd’s house from the owner, a henpecked shoemaker. Sir Richard and Crotchet slip in through...

INTRODUCING our NEW FORMAT! FIRST — in Flash Academy, we'll learn what Paddington Fair Day, Darby's Fair, Barking Irons, and Cherry-Coloured Prads meant, in highwaymens' slang. THEN — we plunder five different story papers! In Sweeney Todd, Ch. 37 and 38 — We meet Major Bounce, the "swaggering companion" and Mrs. Lovett's beau ideal — who, unfortunately, has lost her favo...

BIG DOINGS! This week, in addition to plundering Sweeney Todd , we're adding Varney the Vampyre to the show. Next week, we'll add Black Bess; or, The Knight of the Road and Spring-Heel'd Jack, the Terror of London and The Black Band; or, The Mysteries of Midnight to the line-up. We can't wait! FIRST we'll learn what "bursters," "Mrs. Jones's counting-house,&q...

IN WHICH we learn what "a flash of lightning," "a noggen of red tape," "hot flannel," "blackstrap," and "heavy wet" meant in 1830 ... THEN — Tobias just barely escapes from the wrath of Fogg and Watson by hiding in the room of a fellow inmate, another sane person – a girl who’s been put here so her inheritance can be stolen. Tobias and the girl mak...

IN WHICH we learn what "Gammon," "Heavers," "High Gloaks," "Bounceable Cyprians," and "Boners of Stiff-Ones" meant in 1830 ... THEN — Colonel Jeffery and his friend Captain Rathbone actually watch a wealthy out-of-town customer enter Sweeney Todd’s shop and never come out. The colonel almost decides to investigate by being shaved there, but luckily...

IN WHICH poor Tobias is uncomfortably settled into a dungeon cell in the lunatic asylum; Mrs. Lovett’s cook learns the bitter truth, that he is a prisoner enslaved and must make pies for her if he wants to live; and madhouse keeper Fogg tells Sweeney Todd a nice little bedtime story, as a sort of character reference, over a bottle of wine stolen from one of his patients. Things are hotting right u...

IN WHICH Tobias breaks into Sweeney Todd’s back parlor while he is out and finds a vast trove of hats, sticks, and jewelry clearly plundered from the dead ... parishoners at St. Dunstan’s church start noticing a strange, nasty odor wafting up from the crypts below ... Tobias runs away, but stops to see his mother, who inadvertently betrays him into Todd’s hands ... and Todd seizes him and carries...

IN WHICH Tobias, the barber’s apprentice, has become absolutely certain Sweeney Todd is murdering his customers — Colonel Jeffery and Johanna Oakley decide that the murdered Mr. Thornhill must be Johanna’s missing beau, Mark, in disguise ... are they right? — and finally, Sweeney Todd dresses as a duke to try to basically pawn the string of pearls to a high-end moneylender. A tip-top evening to al...

IN WHICH we meet Mrs. Lovett’s pie-baker, who she keeps imprisoned in the basement; then he is slain by an assassin with a hammer, and she has to hire (that is, trap) a new pie-baker. ... Mrs. Oakley revenges herself upon her husband and Big Ben with the help of some kind of purgative she spikes their meal with ... and Johanna’s bestie Arabella Wilmot hatches a scheme for Johanna to dress as a boy...

IN WHICH Sweeney Todd is almost caught by a nest of highway robbers while running for it, after the lapidary he tried to fence the pearls to smelled a rat and shouted "stop thief"; the loathesome Pastor Lupin gets very drunk and tries to swindle his way to Johanna's sweet favors by working on her mother, but is taken down a peg by Mr. Oakley's cousin, a burly beefeater named Ben;...

IN WHICH Johanna learns sad news about her missing fiance, and Sweeney Todd makes an attempt to fence the pearls he stole from Mr. Thornhill after murdering him in Chapter 1 ... but the pearls are worth the equivalent, in modern money, of about $4.5 million. The attempt will not go the way the barber hopes .... A thunderous welcome to all you dimber doxies, prime coves, fly Corinthians and knights...

IN WHICH we are introduced to Johanna Oakley, our heroine, who pines for her fiance Mark Ingestrie, whom she believes to be lost at sea; and to Col. Jeffery, one of our heroes, and close friend of Thornhill, the sea-faring gentleman who Sweeney Todd "polished off" last week in Chapter 1. Thornhill's dog continues to bedevil Sweeney Todd. Then, in Chapter 4, we are introduced to Sarah...

IN WHICH we are introduced to a new podcast (or, rather, a reorienting of an old one) that seeks to replicate the experience of a London street urchin listening to an older kid reading/performing the latest installments of the weekly "Penny Dreadful" story papers. It's the tippy! Then, as those early-Victorian street urchins would say — we throw the hatchet! We let fly the customary...

A short explanation of this podcast, which has changed rather a lot in its first six months of life. After listening to this short briefing, you'll know... ...whether you need to start with Episode One (no) ...how to get caught up with what's happened in all the Dreadfuls WITHOUT starting with Episode One (pennydread.com/discord)... ...where to start listening (last Sunday's will do).....