Review by Simon Jenner, February 19th 2025
Going over events won’t help you, an Inspector on the Yorkshire Ripper case tells his former Sergeant years on. It’s replaying in her head, but clearly it plays in ours too. It’s not just that Olivia Hurst’s and David Byrne’s 2019 The Incident Room directed by Richard Lindfield at the new Venture Theatre till February 22nd revives another play on a mass murderer intercepted too late. In troubled times Manhunt a new play at the Royal Court, about murderer Raoul Moat is set to open. As if magical thinking changes events.
Accusations hurled at Chief Inspector George Oldfield – whose monomania impeded catching the Ripper – became proverbial. And Millgarth Police station in Leeds a byword in incompetence. Abandonment of the crucial tyre analysis is highlighted here. And the alleged voice recording of the Ripper himself. Hurst and Byrne slowly make another case: casual sexism, worse against sex workers, hasn’t been banished to history. It’s in concentrated form here. Women rose up against advice to stay at home. This hunt shifted attitudes; but so slowly.
Scott Roberts. Photo Credit: Elysa Hyde
Meg Winterburn (a faultlessly watchful, watchable Angelina Sangster) narrates alongside her immediate boss Inspector Dick Holland (an as ever consummate Scott Roberts), leading a cast of nine. Nevertheless this is an ensemble play and Yorkshire accents – with one Manchester thrown in – are delivered with not a single drop in pitch. Sangster and Roberts often duet out of time together, commenting on the action before slipping back into it. Winterburn is Holland’s protégé but he values her too much to promote her.
Sangster’s wary warmth blossoms dealing with women, and manages a hard-won affirmation, struck through with guilt at lost opportunities, failures to speak up. Roberts here not only reaches far into his knack for creasing out the dowdiest of characters. He shows Holland’s explosive temper losing control of his own narrative.
Simon Glazier’s Upstairs set is a model of police clutter: towering filing cabinets emphasising just how much paperwork before computers coppers had to wade through. A central table often bustles with life and suddenly goes quiet. People sleep over, are found behind stacks of files in the morning. It’s aided with Apollo Videaux’ video designs – using period footage and announcers – and his lighting: one each side of the stage. There’s gulphs of dark punctuating time: months and years go by, or a single night. Ewan Cassidy’s sound is exemplary too: especially a moment of near-earthquake.
Harrison Lindfield. Photo Credit: Elysa Hyde
Hurst and Byrne present a traditional police TV genre play, though focused on a single set as if a camera watched over the years. The difference is how we see characters rise and fall rapidly, their visceral theatricality.
George Oldfield (Mark Lester) leads here. Lester’s extraordinary burl and snarl explodes in some moments to make the audience jump. Lester unfolds a relatively competent inspector becoming obsessed. Then as apparent Ripper recordings taunt him, warps into a conviction that one set of evidence overrides all else. Lester shows Oldfield’s varying behaviour towards all subordinates.
Andrew Laptew (Harrison Lindfield) seems at first a typically gormless junior PC dogsbody, promoted past those of longer standing and greater desert, like Winterburn. But it’s a subtle portrayal since Laptew shows openness, diligence, and very sound instincts. But can he or Winterburn speak out against Oldfield’s implacable convictions? Lindfield revels in the tongue-tied ingénue, and suggests hard-won confidence that doesn’t come naturally to Laptew even after promotion.
Another falling foul of Oldfield is Terence Hawkshaw, an anxious taxi-driver caught up in the first of Oldfield’s obsessions. One more evenly matched is super-competent Manchester Inspector Jack Ridgeway. Both are played by Thomas Dee. Dee flinches as Hawkshaw, triumphs as truculent smart-alec Ridgeway who really does know a five-pound note makes all the difference. Against Oldfield’s prejudices Jim Hobson (Dominic Hart) smoulders early on, the dogged tyre-analyser who would have made a breakthrough.
Mark Lester. Photo Credit: Elysa Hyde
Mai Elphinstone, Angelina Sangster, Mark Lester, Dominic Hart. Photo Credit: Elysa Hyde
Sangster also shines in the company of wise-cracking man-chasing office worker Sylvia Swanson (Jozede Scrivener). Able to swivel on an eye-roll, Scrivener gives one of the finest performances of the evening. Her Swanson’s sharp-witted, jokey, a gleaming foil to Sangster: notably joshes with Lindfield and like Winterburn confronts cub reporter Tish Morgan (Mai Elphinstone) who ends at the Sunday Times.
Elphinstone starts with the shy chutzpah of someone pretending a status, then assumes it. Hurst and Byrne give Morgan a feminist monologue that’s essential yet arises suddenly. We’re prepared, but not by much. Elphinstone blisters it at Sangster. There’s a crackling stand-off: two kinds of feminism across a chasm.
With Maureen Long (Emma Sayers, a keenly observed portrayal of trauma) Sangster enjoys the deepest rapport of all, alongside Roberts. The woman who survived the Ripper undergoes PTSD and asking her to re-enact her clubbing not only gives a blast of Donna Summers and disco-lighting, but the comedy of three women (Elphinstone joins to mock) as Sangster’s clearly out of any comfort zone. But finally, with a set of photos, the two women come together in a devastating resumé of the women who died: giving each an imagined life like a sliver of London Road. Everything snaps together. This, more than manifestos, begins to choke you. A breathtaking end to a drama that suddenly ups a notch.
NVT have blown into 2025 with two superb productions; this is a must-see.
Photo Credit: Elysa Hyde
Mark Lester. Photo Credit: Elysa Hyde
Stage Manager Carol Croft, ASMs Martyn Coates, Chris Dent, Karen Hindmarsh
Lighting Design & Lighting Operation, Sound Design Ewan Cassidy & Sound & Video Operation Ewan Cassidy, Chris Dent, Costume Design: Colin Rogers-March
Set Construction & Painting Sam Deards, Simon Glazier, Dan Tranter, Leah Mooney, George Walter,
Poster Henry Lindfield, Programme Ian Amos
Publicity Photography Kelly Garcia, Julian Beresford, Publicity Elysa Hyde, Health and Safety Ian Black.
Many thanks to Ian Amos, Marian Drew, and Box Office FOH and Volunteers
Photo Credit: Kelly Garcia, Julian Beresford