Fictional?
I can't say for certain, having not read the story myself, but the article makes it sound as if Mrs. Lovett is a "real person", with no mention of her being a character in Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street? WaltK ☎ 18:58, 21 December 2023 (UTC)
- The story is available for free here.
- As for her fictionality? The story makes no indication that she is fictional.
"The two individuals who perform a rite on Fleet Street are costumed as Sweeney Todd - the demon barber of Fleet Street - and Margery Lovett, his lover and accomplice. They're played by a Father and Mother from the Military and the Ritual Wings respectively. Both are dressed as caricatures of nineteenth century street life, as if they've stepped out of an illustration from a Victorian penny-dreadful. Todd is an archetypal bogeyman, preying on the unsuspecting while they're at their most vulnerable and using cunning to conceal his crimes. Lovett is the European myth of the witch who devours the unwary, making the unpalatable delicious (by all accounts her pies were regarded as the best in London). Everything about the pair suggests a myth, yet Todd and Lovett were obviously real: it's this dual status, mythic yet true, which led to the Eleven-Day Empire incorporating them as L'Amoureux in the procession."
- Emphasis is my own. The story directly states "Todd and Lovett were obviously real". 19:31, 21 December 2023 (UTC)