Jack the Ripper: The First Two

 "A middle class Ripper...?"

Yes, I know, this is a fantastically obscure bit of telly. It's a drama, not a documentary, from 1973. It's a spin-off of a spin-off. Two popular detectives- Detective Superintendents Barlow and Watt from Softly Softly, a spin-off from Z-Cars (and no, I'm not going to blog those very old, mostly missing series!) spend the whole episode just investigating and discussing this very cold case, the documented statements from witnesses, police surgeons and the like being nicely dramatised. The effect is something that feels very much like a documentary, and a good one. But it isn't.

Stratford Johns and Frank Windsor are awfully good, excellent actors with loads of charisma. Even just the two of them intrelligently discussing the case is splendidly entertaining in itself, and that's before we get to the dramatised bits.

This is deeply engrossing. It doesn't neglect the social context of 1888- a time where women and boys are sent out of the room at the inquest as the Ripper's incisions to poor Annie Chapman's genitals are described, yet there are 80,000 prostitutes. There's a scene where Charles Booth describes the poverty of Whitechapel. And impressions begin to emerge. A left-handed killer, middle-aged. One with anatomical knowledge and the decidedly middle class of luxury to dispose of the blood from his clothes and so on. Yet a middle class man who would not look out of place in Whitechapel.

The format works brilliantly at acquainting us with details: instead of a dry narration, we get two senior detectives dicussing, debating, questioning the evidence intelligently. Why, for instance, was Annia Chapman killed at 5.25am, when day was well into the process of dawning, rather than earlier? Why such intricate ceremony, taking quite some time after each murder? I know not. But I'm already engrossed.