Mrs. Lovett is Todd’s sidekick and romantic interest. She initially appears as a widow sympathetic to Todd’s cause, and the play reveals early on that her sympathy stems from a long-harbored crush on Benjamin Barker, whom she recognizes is Todd. The play gradually reveals Mrs. Lovett as a manipulative character and suggests that she isn’t interested in helping Todd but in pursuing her own fantasies of a life with Todd by the sea.

Mrs. Lovett operates the pie shop underneath Todd’s parlor, which suffers due to a lack of meat supply. She laments that the economic conditions of the Victorian era make it difficult for working-class people like herself to procure quality meat for her meat pies. One of her peers, Mrs. Mooney, has resorted to killing street cats to bolster her supply chain, but Mrs. Lovett declares that she is above such desperate measures. However, when Todd finds himself saddled with Signor Pirelli’s corpse, Mrs. Lovett reasons that it would be a shame to let the meat from the corpse go to waste in a makeshift grave. This turns Todd’s bloodlust into a business opportunity, reinforcing the theme of The Revenge of the Working Class as the baker profits from the bodies of Todd’s wealthy customers.

Although Mrs. Lovett functions in many ways as a potential romantic counterpart for Todd, his interest in her extends only to her capacity to assist him in his plans. She gains his trust when she reveals that she kept his razors for him during his incarceration. He only returns her affections when she suggests baking his victims’ corpses, showing her usefulness to his revenge plans. For her part, Mrs. Lovett only helps Todd in the hope that his obsession with revenge will eventually subside, freeing them both for a life together.

The play hints at Mrs. Lovett’s manipulative qualities early on when Todd inquires about the fate of his wife, Lucy. Recognizing Todd, she uses the story of Lucy to elicit a pained reaction from him, confirming her suspicions. When Todd asks her what became of Lucy, Mrs. Lovett informs him that she took arsenic but withholds the fact that she survived and is now the beggar woman on Fleet Street. When Todd learns the truth about Lucy, Mrs. Lovett rationalizes that she lied to “protect” Todd, but he kills her by throwing her into the oven. This reinforces the theme of The Perils of Obsession by making Mrs. Lovett’s desire for Todd become the cause of her downfall.

Judge Turpin is the primary antagonist of the play. Though Turpin is a one-dimensional character, his character traits underline the corruption of the traditional institutions that govern Victorian society and drive the theme of The Revenge of the Working Class.

The play characterizes Turpin as a man of indulgence and wealth, indifferent to the suffering of others and caring only about satisfying his desires. Turpin frequently abuses his office for his own convenience. For example, after he condemns a young boy to death, he explains to the Beadle that he rushed the verdict because he was annoyed with the defendants’ smell. He also sentenced Benjamin Barker to the British penal colony in Australia to facilitate his attempts at seducing Lucy. Mrs. Lovett suggests that the charge that Turpin pinned on Barker was either falsified or inconsequential. Turpin’s failure to recognize Todd during either of their encounters further underscores his callousness, suggesting a complete absence of guilt.

Turpin is a covetous man, undeterred by the limitations that his place in society expects of him. Wheeler and Sondheim use this character trait to point out the hypocrisy of the upper classes. For example, in the wake of Barker’s incarceration, Turpin raped Lucy at a party, to the amusement of his social peers. Though Turpin’s willingness to raise Johanna in the absence of her parents ostensibly suggests that he has redeemable qualities, his plot to marry her against her will nullifies that suggestion. Turpin’s opposition to Anthony as a “corrupt youth” speaks to his hypocrisy as a corrupted force in his own right. Turpin’s arrogance proves to be his downfall, as Todd successfully leverages it to bring the judge back into his barber’s chair. Though Todd manages to obtain his revenge against Turpin, it comes at the cost of his downfall.