THE LONG SHADOW - mon 9pm ITV. TV PACE. NO SPOILERS

[Blondeshavemorefun]

The Long Shadow is a seven-part series that will start at 9pm on Monday September 25 2023 on ITV1, with subsequent episodes broadcast every Monday evening from thereon.

The Long Shadow is based in part on Wicked Beyond Belief by Michael Bilton, a critically acclaimed account of the case. It sensitively tells the stories of the victims who crossed Sutcliffe’s path, as well as their families and survivors. It also highlights alarming parallels between the so-called Yorkshire Ripper’s terrible crimes and tragic events in our more recent history.

Between 1975 and 1980, Peter Sutcliffe terrorised Yorkshire in a killing spree that left 13 women dead and seven others lucky to be alive after they managed to survive his brutal attacks.

His horrific crimes left a deep scar on the nation’s psyche and have been the subject of numerous films and documentaries, but the grief and pain that continues to be felt by his victims’ families is often forgotten.

Opening in October 1975, with the murder of Wilma McCann, a mother of four young children from Leeds, this week’s first episode goes on to follow the story of Sydney Jackson and his wife Emily, who would be Sutcliffe’s second victim.

Like many people in Britain during the period, the Jacksons were struggling to make ends meet in tough economic times, and Emily made the difficult decision to become a part-time sex worker in a bid to support their three children.

The police initially suspect Sydney of killing his wife, until it soon becomes clear the two murders are linked – and the start of a terrifying killing spree.

As the series progresses, Sutcliffe’s crimes launch the biggest police manhunt Britain has ever seen, but many of the detectives harbour misogynistic attitudes that hamper their investigation.

However, one detective who understands the situation is DCS Dennis Hoban (Toby Jones) who takes up the case in its early stages.
Sutcliffe avoided detection for years due to a series of missed chances by police to catch him. He eventually confessed in 1981 after a police check discovered stolen number plates on his car

The cast is amazing

•	Toby Jones (<a class="break-all" href="https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toby_Jones)" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toby_Jones)</a> as DCS Dennis Hoban
•	David Morrissey (<a class="break-all" href="https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Morrissey)" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Morrissey)</a> as DCS George Oldfield
•	Daniel Mays (<a class="break-all" href="https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Mays)" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Mays)</a> as Sydney Jackson
•	Lee Ingleby (<a class="break-all" href="https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lee_Ingleby)" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lee_Ingleby)</a> as DCS Jim Hobson
•	Katherine Kelly (<a class="break-all" href="https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katherine_Kelly_(actress))" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katherine_Kelly_(actress))</a> as Emily Jackson
•	Shaun Dooley (<a class="break-all" href="https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shaun_Dooley)" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shaun_Dooley)</a> as DCS Chris Gregg
•	Daisy Waterstone (<a class="break-all" href="https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daisy_Waterstone)" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daisy_Waterstone)</a> as Jacqueline Hill
•	Jill Halfpenny (<a class="break-all" href="https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jill_Halfpenny)" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jill_Halfpenny)</a>

as Doreen Hill

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Jasmine Lee-Jones as Marcella Claxton

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Molly Wright (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molly_Wright_(actress))
as Donna Deangelo

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Liz White (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liz_White_(actress))
as PS Meg Winterburn

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Mark Stobbart as
Peter Sutcliffe (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Sutcliffe)

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Alexa Davies (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexa_Davies)

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Chloe Harris

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Stephen Tompkinson (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Tompkinson)

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Jack Deam (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Deam)

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Michael McElhatton (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_McElhatton)

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Adam Long (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam_Long_(British_actor))

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Ruth Madeley (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruth_Madeley)

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Dorothy Atkinson (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dorothy_Atkinson)

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Rob James-Collier (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rob_James-Collier)

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Charley Webb (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charley_Webb)

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Steven Waddington (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_Waddington)

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Kris Hitchen

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Victoria Myers
[1]

I always subtitle now @LadyEloise1

Partly as I'm half dead but Also as all
Blood mumble

Add in accents and I'm fucked 😂

I'm a bit deaf and with the mumbling and Yorkshire accents I hadn't a hope in knowing what they were saying. The more senior male detectives are the worst offenders re mumbling except Toby Jones. I could hear him.
I think it's discriminatory towards those with hearing issues to show stuff on tv without subtitles.
Are there definitely subtitles when it's shown in the UK ?
Virgin TV Ireland might have a case to answer !

I'm not deaf at all, but am having real trouble understanding David Morrisseys mumbling.. who decided that would be a great idea? odd..

I was wondering where she is now. Someone really should try and right that wrong.

There was a documentary on last night (BBC2) about The Yorkshire ripper.. i only caught bits of it, but they interviewed a few people involved, and for some reason i think Marcella mightve been one of them

I am having to rewind back a lot with this show and replay bits of dialogue. A lot of the actors have fags permanently in their mouths for authenticity so I suppose that doesn't help much.

Yes itv shows subtitles

Looks like the detectives didnt bother looking at the photofit! Might've saved time aye?

At last!

.. or not

I assume David Morrissey's accent is supposed to sound like the real Oldfield did, but it is hard to hear.

Re the photofit, when the investigation was reviewed after Sutcliffe's trial, the review team analysed dozens of photofit descriptions and pinned them on a wall for the first time, showing the same face over and over again. The investigating team/s had never done this.

The whole investigation was an epic mansplain - women making the same point over and over, being ignored, told they were wrong or misguided, then men taking the credit at the end for concluding exactly the same thing. That piece of footage with the OICs laughing in a self-congratulatory fashion on the day of Sutcliffe's arrest is utterly shameful.

I tend to watch the dramas on catchup , always have to use subtitles , the sound is worse than tv.

God, they've made such a mess of it and so many mistakes in trying to catch him .
That was sad last night when Jackie's mum was listening to Bridge over Troubled Water 😥

'The whole investigation was an epic mansplain'

Yes, spot on description. The police treat every woman as a nuisance, unless they are doing something useful like answering phones or typing up a transcript, and even then they're expected to shut up and get on with it

It's a very thoughtful and empathetic script, and really reveals how misogyny is so firmly embedded in society

I felt a mixture of sadness and anger after this episode. The blatant misogyny and mansplaining, the pig headed behaviour of Oldfield etc al and especially the photofit that was discarded not once, but twice by the senior officers. I was in my 20s during this period and remember the horror of it, but its hard now to take on board quite how misogynistic the world was then.

A hard watch. The misogyny was horrifying

Did they cover Jean Jordan and the fiver? If they did, I seem to have missed it.

No, that story was omitted.

Thanks! Just realised I'd missed episode 4.

The programme missed a significant clue out by omitting Jean Jordan’s story. The fiver he paid her with was the biggest clue they had at the time. It was the breakthrough they needed. (apart from the other evidence given by the women who’d survived his attacks, the photo fits, the voice on the tapes, all ignored or dismissed)

Wasn't Sutdliffe interviewed in relation to the bank note? (One of many occasions). I don't understand why there was such reluctance or inability to put clues together in this case. He looked the part, and slightly unusual, he'd been observed numerous times in red light districts, he was one of only a few hundred men who could have received the fiver.

He was interviewed twice about it, but had alibi’s for the night he killed Jean Jordan and the night he went back to Manchester to find the £5 note ( he was either at home or having a housewarming party). His wife and mother corroborated the alibis but obviously he wasn’t at home the entire time in both evenings.

I wonder why the programme didn't cover it?

The bank note investigation was fascinating - the Bank of England reprinted a dummy bundle of £25,000 which contained the £5 note, and the police and bank staff recreated the transactions from the cashier records held by the bank branch where the bundle was delivered until they knew when the note had gone out.

They narrowed it down to 240 people who could have had the note paid to them in their wages, and then cross-checked them against the information they already had. But Sutcliffe's records had been misplaced or misfiled, so they missed the fact that he had the right kind of car and had been seen numerous times in red light areas - all those things taken together should have leapt out at the detectives. It was a brilliant piece of work, but let down by the indexing system.

Oh I see @SydneyCarton .That was a pity, he might well have been caught at that point. I also read that his feet matched the prints made at a couple of the crime scenes, there was quite a lot of evidence, but spread across an insanely vast indexing system. Computers have transformed things.