Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 7/10
Cast: Kate Phillips, Stuart Martin, Cathy Belton, Ansu Kabia, Danny Midwinter, Evan McCabe, Richard Evans, Nick Dunning, Simon Ludders, Amy McCallister, Andrew Gower, Kevin Doyle.
There are few places in time that make for the convenience of the private detective to ply their trade, and the later Victorian period with its pulse set firmly on the expansion of the Industrial Revolution, the sense of optimism shrouding the creeping decay, the rust of human life, as they fall foul to mechanisation, is up there with the very best of them.
Even when a television series or a film does not have the feel of what London was generating at the time, it has to have the air of possibility, the hammering home of the wretchedness rubbing shoulders with the idea of enforced superiority to which the largest city on Earth at the time was capable of being, a machine, a monster in itself, one that was both acting as a kindly benevolent king, and that as the gruesome underbelly of rampant, unchecked capitalism which could chew down on a life, and then spit out the remains with impunity.
If a programme such as Miss Scarlett and The Duke is to reach out beyond its cosy appearance, and no matter how intriguing it is because of its own outward shell and dramatic intentions, then it should surely seek out the real monster of the piece, and whilst the series is not only well intentioned, its embracement of the truth of how the police force would have benefitted in its struggle to contain peace and order as it strode towards the 20th Century if it had allowed women to quite rightly take their place aside their male counterparts at the time, its cosiness is akin to a Sunday afternoon melodrama, the television version of the accompaniment of toasted crumpets and scones with jam and cream with a healthy pot of tea.
That said, even amongst the sense of overwhelming optimism that the series grasps at, there is a medium of magic to be found; the problem is that it comes in waves, there is no build up which reaches its crescendo at the appropriate point, there is no sense of abiding feminism to be truly found, even in an episode that does its best to focus its attention on the fight for women’s suffrage. In short it is too tidy to add insight into the times and how women were excluded from providing a service to the greater good of society but has like all good dramas enough to keep the watcher from completely turning away for good.
Miss Scarlett and The Duke can be greater than it imagines, its goal, its objective should be to send a message to those watching that such a premise should have been not only possible, but actively encouraged. The programme has that opportunity in its second series; however, it possibly will not take it, which is a huge shame for the story as a whole.
Ian D. Hall