'Ripper Street' a new detective series from BBC America may present the perfect antidote to a seemingly sterile cinematic modernity. We are transported back to Whitechapel, London 1889, barely six months after the gruesome slashings of the notorious Jack the Ripper. Plunged amidst the squalor of the Victorian metropolis we follow the investigations of Detective Edmund Reid and Sergeant Bennett Drake through the intricate and seedy maze of the 'underworld.' The first series broadly covers their attempts to secure the identity of the 'Ripper' murders, whilst each episode introduces individual cases. Most notable is the rich and variegated depth of the scenes and streets, lush cockney'd banter of real and believable characters and of course the exquisite costumes. It may be apt to remark that the fabric of such dramatizations invariably leaks into the current and commonplace, and we should not be altogether surprised to encounter reproductions of costume and slang on our street-corners. Already, as I write there are those who are busying themselves with lists of the exotic Victorian verbage with which to startle and amaze otherwise innocent aunts over tea and scones, whilst there are many phrases we still currently use such as lush, flashy and fly, the others seem doomed to re-enter the vernacular:
Cracksman (a burglar, safe-cracker), Crusher (a policeman), Lurk (a place of concealment), Molly House (a homosexual, specifically transvestite, a brothel), Nipper (a young child), Pig (a copper or bobby - a policeman), Rookery (a slum or ghetto), Scratch (a line drawn in the ground where boxers stand at the beginning of a round), Snide (counterfeit money), Thomas (a prostitute's client), Toff (a well dressed or upper class person), Toffer (a high class prostitute), bacca-pipes (a tightly curled moustache or whiskers), crab-shells (shoes), fawny dropping (a deceptive crime involving the sale of a cheap ring), lavender (to be hidden from the police, to be pawned, put away or simply dead), luggers (ear-rings), to take the 'Huntley' (to take the cake or biscuit - to take full advantage of a situation), a Maltooler (a pickpocket operating on an omnibus), Muck Snipe (a down and out, a bum), Out of Twig (in disguise), Puckering (speaking in an incomprehensible manner).
All in all we are presented with a unique insight into an age of liberal repression, sexual deviancy, prostitution, drugs and substance abuse, notorious criminal activities, anarchy... in fact, a long and evocative glimpse into the reverse side of the glorious British Empire. It is such an aspect of society that we would wholeheartedly attempt to turn away from, to blindly deny exists even today in our own modern world. We want hygiene and sanitation and prayers before a peaceful night's sleep... but eventually the horror of the bad-side seeps through and corruption surges to submerge our idealism in foul stench of a cracked and decaying sewer pipe that we have attempted to ignore and fail to repair.
All Rights Reserved / Copyright David John Drew 2013
