Picture from B.B.C. Television.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Matthew Macfadyen, Jerome Flynn, Adam Rothenberg, Myanna Buring, Charlene McKenna, Jonathon Barnwell, David Wilmot, Ian Bannon, David Dawson.

London’s Whitechapel district is never far from a source of inspiration when it comes to gruesome tales, especially when it comes to its down at heel and salubrious past. Things may have improved in the 130 years since Jack the Ripper stalked its alleyways but in the 1880’s the police and the public were under siege by evil and danger that masqueraded itself as decency. The latest B.B.C. television series to look at the way Victorian detectives dealt with the disorder and death of the times is the tremendous Ripper Street.