Rupert Penry-Jones, Phil Davis and Steve Pemberton star in this three-part crime drama, which attempts to tingle spines by setting stage on the same streets stalked by the real serial killer.
Rupert Penry-Jones and Phil Davis
Penry-Jones plays fast-track careerist DI Chandler, who is in charge of his first murder and heading a hostile team, including copper’s copper DS Miles (Davis, recently seen in Doctor Who and Silent Witness).
Pemberton (best known for The League of Gentlemen) is Ripperologist Edward Buchan, who immediately spots that the murder Chandler is investigating, that of a woman on the site of a school, bears similarity to the killing of Mary Ann Nichols 120 years before. As the facsimile murders mount, the drama becomes a race against time.
For Penry-Jones, Whitechapel is a change of pace after his action-man parts in the BBC's Spooks and The 39 Steps. ITV quotes him as saying, ‘Chandler’s more cerebral. He doesn’t like the sight of blood.
‘Whitechapel starts with him being given his first murder case, which all concerned think is going to be a simple domestic. But of course it turns out to be a serial killer. So he ends up having to muck in more than he expected and realises he enjoys policing rather more than sitting behind a desk.'
'Awful murders – he was the original serial killer'
‘The first thing that hit me,' Penry-Jones says, 'was the script – a real page-turner. I found the research very interesting. I didn’t realise how gruesome it all was, though. They really were the most awful murders. He did terrible things to those women, even eating bits of their bodies. He was the original serial killer.’
The drama's other star is the capital itself. Also quoted by ITV, producer Marcus Wilson says, ‘London is amazing. At street level, everything feels modern but if you look up, past the neon hoardings, you see the history of the city in the buildings. And the reverse is true, get up high and look down and there are still cobbles everywhere. In fact, I'm told some of the cobbles on the murder sites are still the same cobbles that Jack walked in 1888.’ (See Walks of London for photos/illustrations of then and now.)
Writers Ben Court and Caroline Ip have certainly fallen victim to the popular curiosity for the murders that has produced a megaton of Ripper books, walking tours and bad-taste tourist attractions.
Researching Jack the Ripper
Court is quoted by the network: ‘We have always had a broad interest in serial killers. Jack the Ripper stood out because the case is unsolved and we thought it would be interesting to “re-investigate” the crimes from a modern perspective.
‘For research we read a lot of books and visited all the original sites, as far as is possible. We also spent a lot of time online looking at the Ripperology sites. We relied on impartial experts and avoided books that claimed to "solve" the mystery. We are working on our own theory about the Ripper but it's too early to say any more than that…’
Their theories will be revealed through Chandler in Whitechapel. It will be quite a feat for Court and Ip to resolve their fictional update with a culprit that matches everyone’s expectations of the monster behind the myth. Otherwise the whole thing could be a slight let-down. Or will the killer get away again?
Ripper Casebook
- Five victims are accredited to Jack the Ripper: Mary Ann Nichols (31st Aug), Annie Chapman (8th Sept), Elizabeth Stride (30th Sept), Catherine Eddowes (30th Sept), Mary Jane Kelly (9th Nov).
- But there may have been more. The ‘Whitechapel murders’ of 1888-91 totalled 11 victims, including the five above (see the Metropolitan Police site). All remain unsolved.
- Suspects were far fewer than the modern literature suggests (everyone from the Duke of Clarence to Arthur Conan Doyle and Walter Sickert). Police actually considered barrister Montague John Druitt, a Pole called Kosminski, Russian-born Michael Ostrog and American quack doctor Francis J Tumblety.
- www.casebook.org is a huge online repository of info on the crimes.
Robin Jarossi - London-based journalist and editor specialising in TV, sport and books. I was the editor of 'Cable Guide' and have worked at 'Radio ...
