The Long Shadow - ITV1 - Monday September 25th at 9pm

[Southeastdweller]

Anyone else looking forward to watching this seven part drama?

https://www.radiotimes.com/tv/drama/the-long-shadow-release-date-newsupdate/

Really affecting drama. Brilliant casting.

Thanks for all the links. Just read the Guardian piece. More fine acting to come in a very difficult drama.

I just searched ITVX on the app and there it was. I started watching it but it’s too dark for me. I can’t do it.

Carol Ann Lee wrote a book about the victims involved, "Somebody's Mother, Somebody's Daughter", if anyone is interested. I suspect it influenced the way this drama portrayed events, though it isn't credited.

@BIossomtoes that's really weird as I can't find it at all. Even if I type the whole name in, it says there are no matches.

Red Riding is here, but it's on Premium, so not free to watch:

https://www.itv.com/watch/red-riding/10a1770

I thought the viewpoint of this storyline was really interesting. I was around 10 when Peter Sutcliffe was finally convicted and remember the newspaper reports at the time focusing heavily on the prostitution element of the victims which conjured up rather lurid images of them. In reality of course, they were ordinary women just trying to make ends meet. I can’t imagine though how the children and family of Emily Jackson must feel if it genuinely was the case she had turned to sex work to buy a bridesmaids dress and the kids Xmas presents. So very sad.

Agree that it was jarring that Sydney was sat sinking pints whilst his wife was desperate enough to turn to prostitution. I assume the backstory here was that the death of Derek (their child?) had caused depression and a breakdown of the marriage from an intimacy point of view.

The casting is absolutely stellar though so I am looking forward to the next episodes.

I’m glad it’s showing Emily’s husband sat drinking. That I’m sure was the reality. The police officer stating it was the victims fault for being attacked and murdered was her own fault was also the reality. That was the underlying tone taken.
I did read that the powers that be were very happy to push the ‘he targets prostitutes’ narrative. That was untrue. He attacked anyone. Sometimes sex workers were easier targets that’s all.
The authorities were desperate to cover up this fact as rightly so, it would cause panic if women knew that they could be attacked at any time by this vile man.

Thinking back my mum had to walk through an alleyway coming home from work. I remember her saying she was on at the council every time the street light there wasn’t working. I bet she was petrified knowing Sutcliffe was at large.
Very depressing times.

I think.he did initially target sex workers ,I have seen various documentaries and although obviously the murders were investigated when it was " only prostitutes" being attacked the police were quite disdainful, but then I believe the narrative changed when he attacked a young 16 year old student.

"The Ripper" documentary shows that clearly. Police officers working on the case at the time and Christa Ackroyd the journalist are all interviewed and when the "innocent victim" was murdered, they stepped up everything in the investigation.

Ah, that explains it. I have Premium to avoid interminable ads.

He did target prostitutes, or women he assumed were sex workers. In his statement about the killing of his penultimate murdered victim, Marguerite Wallis, he admitted in his police statement that as he hit her he said “you filthy prostitute” and later he told police that “the women I killed were bastard prostitutes littering the streets”.

He did target prostitutes, or women he assumed were sex workers. In his statement ...

The point rather being he thought all women were.

Sutcliffe is also suspected of further murders including one disabled man and 2 women for whom 2 other men were wrongfully convicted

https://www.examinerlive.co.uk/news/west-yorkshire-news/10-secret-murders-yorkshire-ripper-23181148

I don’t believe a word that came out of Sutcliffe’s mouth. He claimed to have paranoid schizophrenia, that was a lie, his wife did and that is how he was able to fool certain professionals. He attacked a man, he wasn’t a prostitute. He attacked a child, she wasn’t a prostitute. He tried to justify his behaviour by claiming it was ‘only prostitutes.’ Christ even now, many, many people think prostitutes and sex workers are ‘less than.’ Look at the news, the majority of males believe they are better than females full stop, never mind ‘dirty prostitutes/slappers/whores’ insert whatever derogatory term you want.
It pisses me off when victims are defined in that way. What the fuck does it matter if a woman was a prostitute? How come a man is never described as ‘some dirty bastard who pays women for sex?’
Sutcliffe murdered a bank clerk. I doubt very much whether her family will allow her name to be used in this or any other programme. It absolutely suited the narrative that Sutcliffe hated prostitutes and wanted to clear the streets of them or whatever crap he said.
The fact is some people are evil bastards who do not have empathy.
They do not need a reason to do what they do. They enjoy it.
They can live seemingly normal lives. They don’t act weird or anything like that. They have jobs, wives, children.
People want them to give a reason for what they did. To justify it. He happily obliged.

The storyline with Katherine Kelly is heartbreaking. A loving mum who didn't want to let her kids down. That poor woman and her children.

I’ve mentioned this upthread, I was a barmaid in 1975, a second job to my full time job. I was working three nights in a working men’s club to save up for a car. Beer was 13pence a pint where I worked and I recall petrol at 33p a gallon. My dad gave me £1.00 note hide under the cover on the steering wheel that hid the big nut holding the steering wheel in place. he said it was for emergencies, it would get me home if I ever ran short of cash or fuel.
I know beer was slightly cheaper where I worked.
£5.00 doesn’t sound a lot now but It bought a weeks food shopping back then.

Absolutely not. Far too recent and too many living relatives. Extremely poor taste.

I may be mistaken here but I think Family Allowance, as it was known then, was initially paid to the man. By the time I claimed it, it had changed to being paid to the mother. I received 4.50 a week for my first child in 1979.
I

I think it was always paid to mothers. I remember my mum had a booklet.

To go against the consensus on here, I don’t remember the 1970s being that dark! We were more rural though, so perhaps not so much industrial and traffic fog.
I think it’s quite respectful so far, but David Morrissey is a bit overexposed as a senior policeman. Did he buy his own uniform and insists on only going for parts where he gets to wear it?

@Saucery tbf, neither do I, and I was in the same Nottinghamshire coal town that David Morrissey was last senior policing! I also thought that about him.
My Mum definitely received the family allowance for me. I thought that was the whole raison d'être of it? That mothers, and not fathers, were given the money.

Also agree it's being respectfully done (as was the documentary referenced upthread)

On the flip side, I love him as a senior policeman. Was glad when he turned up.

You are right about the booklet, I had the same but it has a long history going as far back as the late 1700’s. It was originally given in tax concessions/ relief with various changes through the centuries.

Oh, I don’t mind him, he’s a good actor (and at his dishiest as a wicked Roman in Britannia). It’s just the same actors over and over in these programmes. Be nice to see a variation that doesn’t remind me of Red Riding//Life On Mars every time. Probably part of the London-centric production as the Guardian article comments on.

My family allowance still came in a booklet in the early 2000s. I remember the weekly trip to the PO with my Mum to collect hers too.

Who would you like to have seen as an alternative? I think there's a lot of different actors in this series with some only appearing in one episode.

Just read another piece about the mother of the victim Jacqueline asking for her favourite song Bridge Over Troubled Water to be included. It is, but the Peggy Lee version as the writer felt it should be sung by a woman.

Also about the use of words on placards during the women's Reclaim the Night marches - he wanted them to be the same words used in the recent matches to emphasise how things haven't changed.

Not sure, @LittleMonks11 that's the trouble with new actors not coming up through the ranks - you can't name who you haven't seen!
Good to see Toby Jones in the type of part he doesn't normally play, though.