Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *
Cast: Agnes O’Casey, Rory Kinnear, Eddie Marsan, Tom Varey, Rita Tushingham, Allan Corduner, Will Keen, Tracy Ann Oberman, Gabriel Akuwudike, Tamzin Outhwaite, James Craze, Danny Hatchard, Hannah Traylen, Samantha Spiro, Julia Krynke, Danny Sykes, Henry Wilton-Hunt, Hannah Onslow, Nigel Betts, Preston Nyman, Alastair Michael, Romane Portail, Stephen Hogan, Liza Sadovy, Ethan Moorhouse.
There are those that are uncomfortable with certain truths, who maintain the stance of cross armed indulgence when confronted with a reality that they cannot understand, or worse, secretly desire that the text being discussed, had in fact been more devastating. The question of anti-Semitism in some quarters never goes away, and yet there will always be those who deny it happens in the numbers that is reported, and those cases that are hushed up for fear of reprisals.
“It couldn’t happen here”, the myth of a tolerant, happy utopia that is open to all, busted wide open by constant attacks on what is considered a minority in 21st Century Britain. It does not matter if you are Jewish, Black, LGBTQI, Asian, or any other member of society, if you are seen to be standing out against the notion of what it means to be a certain way, carry a specific belief, then ostracism is followed by abuse, which can only lead to laws and the inevitable talk of ‘What do we about them?’
Why do we keep making drama that highlights the rage and bitterness of a group of people who were vociferous in their hatred of the Jewish population, because that hatred, that bubbling undercurrent of animosity, driven by misunderstanding, of projected historical fear, is the same for all who are treated with suspicion, of being the outsider, one small step away from death by the fascist mob.
Ridley Road examines that question with deep understanding. The four-part series, set in London less than two decades after the end of World War Two, against the backdrop of the swinging 60s, was the flashpoint driven by Colin Jordan and his followers who wanted to see Jewish people punished for what they saw as the ills of the nation.
The stark reality is that the hatred didn’t end with World War Two, and as with people who gay, lesbian, bisexual or trans today, who are black, who are disabled, who have a different outlook on life, have constantly been saying, the perceived normality of the country is driven by a lack of compassion, by an extreme of emotions, and one that we really need to discuss, and address before the spark of racial and personal prejudice is allowed to fester once again.
This important, and timely drama, which starred a super Agnes O’ Casey, a brilliant Rory Kinnear as the odious Colin Jordan, and with terrific support from the likes of Samantha Spiro, Eddie Marsan, Will Keen, Tracy Ann Oberman, Tamzin Outhwaite, Gabriel Akuwudike, and the ever spectacular Rita Tushingham, is not just television, it is the constant reminder that there is no room for bigotry, hatred or prejudice, in this world.
Ian D. Hall