Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
Cast: Matthew Macfadyen, Jerome Flynn, Adam Rothenberg, MyAnna Buring, Neve McIntosh, Leanne Best, Gillian Saker, Charlene McKenna, David Wilmot, Damien Molony, David Dawson, Frank Harper, Robert O’ Mahoney, Alexis Forbes, Amber Rowan, Ciaran O’ Brien.
Ripper Street not only focuses its twitching nose and beady eye at the life of Detective Inspector Reid and the men who he surrounds himself with in the cause of his duty in Whitechapel but also of those who had more to fear than anybody else in the dark days of Queen Victoria’s reign – the women themselves. Become Man looks at the complex relationship between men and women the year after the brutal and senseless murders of prostitutes in Whitechapel and it’s streets.
One pointed reference from the camera’s point of view suggested the thought of many at the time, that it was better to be one of the remaining nightsoil men shovelling the human waste in the area than a woman living off the earnings of other women, even if there were relatively safe and earning money.
This was the women’s tale, the hard look at life in late 1880s London in which the poor and misbegotten were subject to a life that was harsh and unforgiving. The matchgirls who went out on strike but who were badly advised and left deformed and close to death by the chemicals used in their work through to life of one very inspiring woman who should have more said about her than is perhaps known, the first woman on the London County Council, Jane Cobden. No matter the position in life, the women in the East-End of London at the time suffered abuse at the hands of all men.
Become Man took these elements and gave it several fire brands in the shape of the outstanding Leanne Best, Neve McIntosh and MyAnna Buring as Councillor Cobden, Raine and Long Sally. These three women overshadowed their male counterparts to great effect in this particular episode and Leanne Best, an award-winning actor who many a year has frequented the Liverpool stage with absolute grace and style, and Neve McIntosh, more known for her other feminist portrayal as Madame Vastra in Doctor Who, gave the episode real depth and feminine perspective throughout.
Life in the East-End of London in the waning years of Victoria’s reign was brutal, shamefully so but for these three women, so often just portrayed as victims in penny dreadfuls and in some cases back street theatre, it was harder to take on the attributes more closely associated with men at the time, politician, brothel owner and pushed to the edge criminal, than be a woman they might have expected the right to be, one who was lauded for their ideals.
A fantastic episode of Ripper Street and one that did much to highlight women’s issues in the days after Jack the Ripper.
Ian D. Hall