Act 2, Part 1
Mrs. Lovett's pie shop has become a thriving business with even Toby helping to wait on its many customers ("God, That's Good!"). The only downside is the Beggar Woman, who continually hangs around the pie shop defaming Mrs. Lovett. Todd and Mrs. Lovett now have a specially-designed mechanical barber's chair that allows Todd to kill someone in the barbershop and then send the body through a chute directly into the pie shop's basement bakehouse for Mrs. Lovett to cook.
Todd accustoms himself to the idea that he may never see Johanna again, spending his time methodically slashing throats, while Anthony longs to be with her romantically ("Johanna–Quartet"). After a day of hard work, Mrs. Lovett daydreams of a future life of retirement with Todd, though he appears uninterested ("By The Sea").
In the meantime, Anthony discovers that the Judge has committed Johanna to Fogg's Lunatic Asylum and, with Todd's help, plans to rescue her by infiltrating the asylum posing as a wigmaker intent on purchasing inmates' hair ("Wigmaker Sequence" and "The Ballad of Sweeney Todd: Sweeney'd Waited Too Long Before"). Jubilant at the possibility of having his revenge fulfilled after all, Todd sends a secret letter to notify the Judge about Anthony's plot, hoping to lure the Judge to his shop, where he writes that Anthony plans to return with Johanna. (The contents of the letter are sung aloud by a quintet from the company; "The Letter.") In the pie shop, Toby expresses suspicions about Todd and his desire to protect Mrs. Lovett, whom he has come to view as a mother figure ("Not While I'm Around").
When he recognizes Pirelli's coin purse in Mrs. Lovett's possession, she refocuses his attention on learning how to work her meat grinder and other bakehouse machinery, secretly locking him alone in the basement when she leaves. Back upstairs, she encounters Beadle Bamford sitting at her harmonium, commissioned by neighbors to investigate the strange smoke and smells from the pie shop's chimney. Mrs. Lovett stalls for time before Todd arrives and offers the Beadle his promised "free shave"; Mrs. Lovett loudly plays music on her harmonium to cover the screams of the Beadle's demise above ("Parlor Songs"). Immediately after, Toby discovers a hair and fingernail in pie he samples when suddenly the Beadle's fresh corpse tumbles into the basement. Above, Mrs. Lovett informs Todd that Toby has figured them out and they head downstairs to dispose of him.
