#The Long Shadow

[papa-evershed]

Robert James-Collier as Jack Ridgway THE LONG SHADOW

[nomilkinmyteaplease]

Liam Garrigan in The Long Shadow (2023)

[victorianwhitechapel]

The Long Shadow review – a shattering serial killer drama that breaks all the rules

A mighty cast including Katherine Kelly and Toby Jones tells the stories of the women murdered by Peter Sutcliffe. Finally, the focus is on the victims

By the end of the first two of the seven episodes of ITV’s new drama about the Yorkshire Ripper made available for review, Peter Sutcliffe has barely been glimpsed. This alone marks it out from the herd of serial killer dramas, let alone documentaries, of which every streaming platform has a full quota. The general rule is that, however much the makers stress that their creation will centre the victims instead of the perpetrator of the crimes, they somehow all end up in thrall to precisely that person. Even when there really are intentions otherwise, the perpetrator inevitably becomes the dramatic focus and the narrative engine.

The Long Shadow – so far, at least, which is already further than most – shatters the general rule. Written by George Kay (whose last outing was the very different, very fun Hijack starring Idris Elba) and directed by Lewis Arnold (Sherwood, Time, Des – the Dennis Nilsen drama starring David Tennant), it is based on Michael Bilton’s book Wicked Beyond Belief, plus additional research and with the consultation and blessing of the families.

More than any rendering of a notorious case that I can remember, the attention is on the women. Specifically, the living women. And, when they are gone, the people they leave behind. After Wilma McCann’s (Gemma Laurie) murder, and the investigation that will take five years to apprehend Sutcliffe despite the police interviewing him nine times, the focus moves to Emily Jackson (Katherine Kelly). The opening episodes concentrate on presenting her situation to us in the round, as dire financial straits drive the embattled wife and mother to sell sex and put her fatally in Sutcliffe’s sights.

The Long Shadow deals in details. It is not simply poverty that leads the Jacksons to extreme solutions, but the social pressures and the desire not to lose face in front of the neighbours are all carefully and accurately drawn. So too are the subtle prejudices that nudge Irene Richardson (Molly Vevers) out of the chance of a job as a nanny that might have saved her from becoming Sutcliffe’s third murder victim.

After her, there is Marcella Claxton (Jasmine Lee-Jones), who survives a hammer attack by the man who will soon be tagged “the Yorkshire Ripper” by the media, though the moniker – hated by the families – is barely used in The Long Shadow. She miscarries at four months as a result of the attack. Back home from hospital, we see her gently touching her terrible head wound, trying to see it in the mirror and gauge its extent, with the empty cot in the background – a moving evocation of the literal and metaphorical extent of trauma; how much we want to find its boundaries and how impossible it can be to do so.

The police investigation weaves round the women’s stories, and although it hits many familiar beats, the quality of the writing and presence of the likes of Toby Jones, David Morrissey and Lee Ingleby as the various detectives in charge over the years means that this too is better done than usual. We have come to expect virulent misogyny and racism to be on show in dramas set in earlier decades and involving the police – or any other unwieldy, male-dominated institution – but The Long Shadow succeeds in embedding it more quietly but firmly. It is a way of life, a way of thinking rather than a succession of big instances (though it still has its moments, such as when the detectives’ hospital interview with Claxton turns into an interrogation, as their engineered politeness in front of a black woman begins to fail).

This all means that we better understand how the investigation went so wrong so many times, with even “the good guys” believing that the deaths of sex workers (and assuming that any woman near a known streetwalking area was one) were not worth much effort, or that any woman drunk and out after dark got what was coming to her. And it means we can better see its descendant attitudes now and how insidiously they still work against women. Big, sexist/racist set pieces or a clear divide between bad cops and the angelic few who have managed to transcend their eras allow us to believe that things are different now. The Long Shadow’s subtlety and care denies us such mistaken comfort.

The Long Shadow is on ITV and ITVX in the UK, and on Stan in Australia

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I hope one day they do the same with the Whitechapel Victims... RIP.

[hekikiart]

#TheLongShadow

#michaelmcelhatton

I made 4 character posters myself.

[duchessofostergotlands]

Almost finished The Long Shadow about the Yorkshire Ripper murders. Really good. It does a great job of focusing on the women rather than the murderer and the appalling culture of misogyny running through every part of the police investigation

[pop-sesivo]

Si bien Julian Barnes es el escritor británico más francófilo, vale la pena recordar a otro autor, el escocés Arthur Conan Doyle, quien tuvo una genuina pasión por la cultura francesa y por su idioma, que hablaba con fluidez. Conan Doyle (1859-1930) fue un estudioso de la historia de Francia y allí ambientó algunas de sus novelas históricas, como La compañía blanca (1891). Ahora que se estrena la película Napoleón en cines, vale la pena leer La gran sombra (1892), en la que, aunque se sitúa en West Inch, la figura de Bonaparte planea sobre toda la historia (y añade una memorable escena en Waterloo). Pero la pasión de Conan Doyle por Napoleón y la "aventura imperial francesa" alcanza su cumbre en los 17 relatos del húsar Etienne Gerard, publicados en The Strand entre 1894 y 1910, y que Valdemar reunió en la edición Hazañas y aventuras del brigadier Gerard. De estos relatos, llenos de humor y de un gran conocimiento de las campañas de la Grande Armée, destaco dos, por su intensidad y suspenso: "Cómo el brigadier mató a los hermanos de Ajaccio" y "Cómo el brigadier salvó al Ejército" (ésta última ambientada en España).

[abriefingwithmichael]

“The Long Shadow” 06 (2023)

Hard to watch.

Bad detectives continues to make bad deductions/decisions and women continue to die. It might be the most soul-destroying TV show of the year but there is no denying the high quality of the storytelling.

Every step of the way writer George Kay has made some very smart choices about how/when information is imparted to the viewer. It's gripping stuff.

10/10

[cemeterything]

you should always be careful when you fall back asleep again after waking up because sometimes you will just have a pleasant little snooze but sometimes you'll get trapped in TIME PRISON. unfortunately there is no way to predict this.

[memesandmylife]

it really is insane to me how in the mid 2010s netflix had a reputation of making cool, inclusive series as well as saving tv shows after their networks cancelled them, and now here we are today with every halfway decent netflix original show getting cancelled after 1-2 seasons and a bajillion episodes of bigmouth

[jaynedolluk]

Last weekends Times had interviews with Bella Ramsey (looking forward to seeing her in S2 of Time), John Lydon, James Blunt + Jean Claude Van Damme. Plus features on Pauline Boty (6os pop artist) + Britney Spears (extract from new book, Toxic about female celebs in the 2000s). As well as reviews of The Long Shadow, The Reckoning, Bodies and Dark Winds (which I'm currently loving) and the new book on Elizabeth Taylor & Richard Burton, Erotic Vagrancy

[papa-evershed]

Robert James-Collier as Jack Ridgway THE LONG SHADOW

[nomilkinmyteaplease]

More Liam Garrigan in The Long Shadow

[peachybunana]

THEYRE HERE AND THEYRE REAL

[hekikiart]

#TheLongShadow

#michaelmcelhatton

[n0ahsferatu]

ℑ 𝔪𝔢𝔱 𝔞 𝔩𝔞𝔡𝔶 𝔦𝔫 𝔱𝔥𝔢 𝔪𝔢𝔞𝔡𝔰,

𝔉𝔲𝔩𝔩 𝔟𝔢𝔞𝔲𝔱𝔦𝔣𝔲𝔩—𝔞 𝔣𝔞𝔢𝔯𝔶’𝔰 𝔠𝔥𝔦𝔩𝔡,

ℌ𝔢𝔯 𝔥𝔞𝔦𝔯 𝔴𝔞𝔰 𝔩𝔬𝔫𝔤, 𝔥𝔢𝔯 𝔣𝔬𝔬𝔱 𝔴𝔞𝔰 𝔩𝔦𝔤𝔥𝔱,

𝔄𝔫𝔡 𝔥𝔢𝔯 𝔢𝔶𝔢𝔰 𝔴𝔢𝔯𝔢 𝔴𝔦𝔩𝔡

- John Keats, La Belle Dame Sans Merci (1819)

(based on the eponymous painting by Frank Dicksee (1901))

(prints available on my inprnt ! :))