Tag Archives: Ripper Street

Ripper Street, Episode One, Television Review. B.B.C. Television.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Matthew Macfadyen, Jerome Flynn, Adam Rothenberg, Myanna Buring, Charlene McKenna, Jonathon Barnwell, David Wilmot, Ian Bannon, David Dawson.

London’s Whitechapel district is never far from a source of inspiration when it comes to gruesome tales, especially when it comes to its down at heel and salubrious past. Things may have improved in the 130 years since Jack the Ripper stalked its alleyways but in the 1880’s the police and the public were under siege by evil and danger that masqueraded itself as decency. The latest B.B.C. television series to look at the way Victorian detectives dealt with the disorder and death of the times is the tremendous Ripper Street.

Ripper Street, Episode Two. Television Review. B.B.C. Television.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Matthew Macfadyen, Jerome Flynn, Adam Rothenberg, MyAnna Buring, Charlene McKenna, Amanda Hale, Jonathon Barnwell, David Wilmot, Michael Smiley, Hugh O’ Conor, Giacomo Mancini, Joe Gilgun.

When it comes to British crime drama, you don’t get much better than basing the story on real events or authentic people and by placing in it in the sometimes squalid and mean streets of late Victorian era Whitchapel, it surely should be a ratings winner. Ripper Street continues the superb start it made in episode one and brings the claustrophobic, disease ridden and above the law contempt even closer to home in the second episode, In My Protection.

Ripper Street, Closed Casket. Television Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

Cast: Matthew Macfadyen, Adam Rothenberg, MyAnna Buring, Killian Scott, Matthew Lewis, Benjamin O’Mahony, Jonas Armstrong, Joseph Mawle, Mimmi Morton, Anna Burnett, Kahl Murphy, Kye Murphy, Ian Pirie.

There is always the feeling of definitive and upturned world when it is the detective who finds themselves on the run, the officer who has upheld the law in the best way possible for the town and times he lives in, suddenly thrust into the world of dark, of the ignoble and the fear of being hunted. All those times they have chased down a criminal and won, now in the heat of moral decay, counting for nothing as other officers with grudges and jealousy of success running hot through their veins, close in on their quarry.

Ripper Street, No Wolves In Whitechapel. Television Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Cast: Matthew Macfadyen, Jerome Flynn, Adam Rothenberg, MyAnna Buring, Charlene McKenna, Jonas Armstrong, Anna Burnett, Lucy Cohu, Anna Koval, Matthew Lewis, Giacomo Mancini, Benjamin O’ Mahony, Killian Scott, David Threlfall, David Warner.

The streets of the East-End have known pain throughout their existence, the proximity to the docks, the burden of being so close to the capital of a country once steeped in historical value and now one of the mega cities, one that stretches beyond its natural borders and boundaries. At one time full of disease, rancour and malcontent, full of life and the firm grip of humanity sucking on its tender breast, a place of fascination and toil and yet at least for quite a few years, and despite the best attempts of many to introduce metaphorical ones, there are No Wolves in Whitechapel that require taming.

Ripper Street, Our Betrayal. Television Review. B.B.C.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Matthew Macfadyen, Jerome Flynn, Adam Rothenberg, MyAnna Buring, Charlene McKenna, Joseph Mawle, Clive Russell, David Dawson, David Wilmot, Damien Molony, Leanne Best, Frank Harper, David Costabile, Justin Salinger, Robert Goodman, Joel Gilman.

Ripper Street: A Stronger Loving World. Television Review. B.B.C.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Matthew Macfadyen, Jerome Flynn, Adam Rothenberg, Gillian Sakar, Charlene McKenna, Paul Kaye, MyAnna Buring, Gina Bellman, Justin Avoth, Chris Patrick Simpson, David Wilmot, David Dawson, Damien Molony, Kirsty Oswald, Callum Turner, Liam Burke, Gwynne McElveen.

The writers of Ripper Street have never been afraid to head down the path afforded the rich history of Whitechapel for its inspiration. Whether it is the world of male prostitution, the salaciousness of Molly Houses, the rights of women, the Irish question or the straight poison that stalked the streets of the East End in 1888, there is not a moment in that dark history of Whitechapel that isn’t worth exploring.

Ripper Street, Dynamite And A Woman. Television Review. B.B.C.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 7/10

Cast: Matthew Macfadyen, Jerome Flynn, Adam Rothenberg, Clive Russell, David Wilmot, Damien Molony, James Wilby, Leanne Best, Stanley Townsend, Charley Murphy, Martin McCann, Michael Marcus, Guy Williams, Steve Gunn, Frank Melia.

Dynamite and a Woman arguably the two most explosive elements in Victorian London, one in which caused devastation, the other which broke hearts and in which both figured predominantly in the latest case to fall to Detective Inspector Reid to solve; both being surrounded by the new instrument in London, electricity.

Ripper Street, Become Man. Television Review.

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.

Ripper Street, Am I Not Monstrous? Series Two. Television Review. B.B.C. Television.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Matthew Macfadyen, Jerome Flynn, Adam Rothenberg, MyAnna Buring, Joseph Mawle, Clive Russell, David Wilmot, Anton Lesser, Damien Molony Gillian Saker, Nicholas Woodeson, Tom Brook, Elva Trill, Paul Ready, David Dawson.

The past certainly is another country, not only do they do things differently there, but when it comes to Victorian society and the way they treated the more unfortunate members of society it may as well be on a land mass on a another planet in a far off galaxy.

Ripper Street, Pure As The Driven. Television Review. I.T.V.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Matthew Macfadyen, Jerome Flynn, Adam Rothenburg, MyAnna Buring, Joseph Mawle, David Wilmott, Joseph Drake, Gillian Saker.

For the men in H Division, the thin blue line that just about keeps some semblance of order in London’s Whitechapel, no sooner do they rid the area of one killer than another soon takes its place. This time though the killer hiding in the shadows, dealing death to those who get in the way is Heroin; the narcotic that brought back the sins of Empire to the shores of the Thames and backed by the worst criminal of all, the corrupt policeman.