I jump at any chance to see Victorian England portrayed in
movies and on television, so the prospect of Ripper Street, when they began
advertising it on BBC America last year, had me delirious with anticipation by
the time the first episode aired in January 2013. I wasn’t disappointed. How
could I be? The series stars Matthew Macfadyen as Detective Inspector Edmund
Reid, who hardly has time to deal with the aftermath of the Jack the Ripper
murders before equally heinous crimes arise in his corner of London’s
East End.
It’s easy to get distracted by Macfadyen’s voice and eyes
and his altogether excellent acting, but the other cast members—Jerome Flynn as
DS Drake and Adam Rothenberg as former US Army Surgeon and Pinkerton agent
turned brothel owner Captain Homer Jackson—are equally engaging. I particularly
like the fact that the series uses relevant historical issues from the period
to drive the show’s episodes and storyline. In the first season alone, they
have explored the advent of moving picture film, the threat of cholera, the
development of the underground railway, and the London Dock Strike of 1889, to
name just a few. Luckily for those of us who have enjoyed every moment of the
first season, a second has been commissioned and should be filming soon.
The real Edmund Reid was a bit different than the tall,
handsome, deep-voiced Macfadyen. Well, Reid might actually have sported a
deliciously deep baritone. There are no extant recordings to prove otherwise. But
he wasn’t tall. In fact, at the time he joined he was the shortest man on the
Metropolitan Police force at 5 feet 6 inches tall. However, his height did
nothing to deter his rise up the ranks. He entered the Met as a constable in
1872 at the age of twenty-six, and he finally reached the position of Detective
Inspector in 1885. Three years later, when Jack the Ripper began his homicidal
rampage through East End London, DI Reid was the head of the CID (Criminal
Investigation Department) in Whitechapel.
The real Reid must have been a bit of an adventurer. Not
only did he choose to join the police force and enter the detective service,
but he was a balloonist and parachutist. He made about 23 balloon ascents and,
in 1883, won a gold medal for a record-breaking ascent from The Crystal Palace.
Like his fictionalized counterpart on Ripper Street, he did have a wife named
Emily. However, he and his Emily had two children, a daughter named Elizabeth
and a son named Harold. Seventeen years after Emily’s passing, Reid remarried
to Lydia Halling, a woman twenty years his junior. Unfortunately, he died later
that same year at the age of seventy-one.
Ripper Street’s Reid has the same kind of scappy,
means-to-an-end attitude about solving crime and finding the truth as I imagine
the real DI Reid possessed. For a wonderful combination of historical details,
cinematic flair, and great acting, check out Ripper Street on BBC America,
iTunes, or Amazon Instant Video.
