WHITECHAPEL
BY
BEN COURT AND CAROLINE IP
WHITECHAPEL
1
WHITECHAPEL GOES TO SERIES
6x1 hour 3x2 part stories
Whitechapel, written by Ben Court and Caroline Ip, is produced by Carnival Films for
ITV 1 and stars Rupert Penry-Jones, Phil Davis and Steve Pemberton. Other cast
members include Ben Bishop, Claire Rushbrook, Sam Stockman and new team
member Hannah Walters who plays DC Megan Riley.
Producer, David Boulter (He Kills Coppers) says; "Whitechapel is back, bigger and
bolder than before. Gruesome present day investigations summon the ghosts of the
past, screaming and restless. Chandler’s team must decipher their historic
relevance, but history can be unreliable: convincing and confusing in equal measure.
These new Whitechapel stories are dark, compelling and full of surprises."
Chandler and his new unit are still based in Whitechapel nick but as before feel
slightly removed from the prosaic and mundane day to day, run of the mill policing.
They have rescued a huge crime archive, a vast but chaotic collection of files and
papers beneath the incident room. Buchan begins eagerly sorting this treasure trove
of primary sources. When a new case lands on the team’s desk and the race is on to
find the killer, Miles is cynical about Buchan’s value to the team, but Chandler is
convinced that history holds clues. This is where the nightmares of the past help
solve the horrors of the present.
Whitechapel remains a dark and scary place, laden with villainy and foreboding. The
series will take us through three hundred years of history, peeling back the layers of
the East End. There will be Gothic shadows, cobblestones and ancient hostelries,
fear in the Huguenot weaving houses of Wilkes Street, and terrifying discoveries in
the dark corners and rooftops around Brick Lane. With tinges of black comedy the
series is heady, visceral and terrifying. In Whitechapel, history isn’t dead, it’s deadly.
Executive Producer, Sally Woodward Gentle says: “I am delighted we are getting the
chance to tell brand new Whitechapel stories but this time as a series. The East End
of London is steeped in history, secrets and gore and we now have the opportunity to
take Chandler, Miles and Buchan to places darker still. If you thought the Ripper and
Krays were scary, just wait.”
Laura Mackie, Director of Drama, ITV says: “Whitechapel is a striking and distinctive
crime drama that has struck a real chord with the ITV 1 audience. The longer run will
allow us to tell an even richer range of stories from the Whitechapel area”
The new series is produced by David Boulter (He Kills Coppers, Prime Suspect 6)
and executive produced by Sally Woodward Gentle, Creative Director of Carnival
Films (Enid, Any Human Heart). The directors are John Strickland (Bedlam, Bodies,
Apparitions), Richard Clark (Life On Mars, Doctor Who) and Jon East (Summerhill,
That Summer Day).
WHITECHAPEL
2
Notes to Editors:
The original three part serial of Whitechapel debuted on February 02, 2009 with
overnight ratings reaching 8.13 million viewers.
A second serial was commissioned by ITV in September 2009 with the focus on the
infamous Kray twins, Ronnie and Reggie. The first episode of this second series was
broadcast on 11 October 2010 and achieved 7 million viewers (25% share of the
audience). The ratings average for series two was 6.5 million and a 23% share.
ENDS
Press contact for Carnival Films:
Una Maguire at Milk Publicity, una@milkpublicity.com | 0207 5201087 | 07801
036272
Victoria Brooks at Milk Publicity, Victoria@milkpublicity.com | 0207 520 1087 | 07712
009588
Jessica Morris at Milk Publicity, Jessica@milkpublicity.com | 0207 520 1087 | 07736
472752
WHITECHAPEL
3
WHITECHAPEL
Press Release .................................................................................................. .…Page 2
Cast and Crew .................................................................................................... Page 4
Rupert Penry-Jones is DI Joseph Chandler .......................................................... Page 6
Phil Davis is DS Ray Miles .................................................................................. Page 9
Steve Pemberton is Edward Buchan .................................................................. Page 11
Ben Bishop is DC Finley Mansell........................................................................ Page 13
Sam Stockman is DC Emerson Kent .................................................................. Page 14
Hannah Walters is DC Megan Riley………………………………………………. ... Page 15
Synopses ........................................................................................................... Page 16
Historical cases of Whitechapel…………………………………………………. ...... Page 17
Carnival Films .................................................................................................... Page 21
WHITECHAPEL
4
CAST
DI Joseph Chandler.......................................................................... Rupert Penry-Jones
DS Ray Miles ................................................................................................... Phil Davis
Edward Buchan .................................................................................... Steve Pemberton
DC Finley Mansell ..........................................................................................Ben Bishop
DC Emerson Kent .................................................................................... Sam Stockman
Dr Llewellyn ......................................................................................... Claire Rushbrook
DC Megan Riley……………………………………………………...............Hannah Walters
CREW
Executive Producer ..................................................................... Sally Woodward Gentle
Producer .................................................................................................... David Boulter
Director Story 1………….………………………………………………………John Strickland
Director Story 2………….………………………………………………………...Richard Clark
Director Story 3…..……….…………………………………………………………….Jon East
Writers..................................................................................... Ben Court and Caroline Ip
Line Producer .............................................................................................. David Mason
Director of Photography 1 .................................................................... Kieran McGuigan
Director of Photography 2…………………………………………………………...Ulf Brantas
Director of Photography 3……………………………………………………….Owen McPolin
Production Designer .......................................................................................Tom Brown
Art Director ................................................................................. Justin Warburton Brown
Make-Up & Hair Designer ........................................................................ Caroline Noble
Costume Designer ...................................................................................... Andrea Galer
Editor 1 & 3 ...........................................................................................Anthony Combes
Editor 2...................................................................................................... Xavier Russell
Casting Director .......................................................................................... Susie Parriss
WHITECHAPEL
5
Rupert Penry-Jones is Detective Inspector Joseph Chandler
When we last saw DI Chandler, he and the team had been doing battle on the streets
of Whitechapel with delusional identical twins that believed they were the last living
relatives of Ronnie and Reggie Kray. Still based in Whitechapel’s police station, the
team, bored of the petty crimes that fill up their days, are startled when they are
called to a massacre at a tailors shop. With a new format and three new stories to
get his teeth into Rupert wasn’t fazed in the least by some of the gruesome
prosthetics he had to face.
“The torso story is pretty gory,’ claims Rupert. “We had prosthetic bodies made and
torsos with legs, arms and heads chopped off and you see it all - I mean it’s pretty
hard-core. I don’t know how much of that footage they’re actually going to use in the
final show, but when you first saw it, it was quite shocking,’ he laughs.
This series sees a slight gear change in Chandler by way of a tougher exterior. “He
has been investigating murders for three or four years so he has seen his fair share
of gore by now. I think he can cope with it a lot better, but still he doesn’t like it. He’s
not immune to it but he can keep it under control.”
Having copy-catted Whitechapel’s most notorious murders, the Ripper and the Krays
in previous serials, the format has changed to three, 2 x 1 hour stories but remain
true to the gothic roots of the Ripper.
As Rupert explains, “The format has changed slightly this year because there are
only a certain number of suitable copycat crimes you can write about,’ he admits.
“What Ben and Caroline [writers] have done is brought Buchan in to advise us by
using history as a kind of a map to guide us through present day crimes. So we use
the crimes of the past to help us solve the crimes of the present.”
It is Chandler who is responsible for bringing Buchan on board. When a vast archive
of case files are digitised and released for destruction, Chandler sees their value and
rescues them. An ecstatic Buchan is then recruited to help sort through and organise
an archive at Whitechapel.
“Bringing Buchan in is a risk for both Chandler and Buchan but he soon becomes
invaluable to the team with even Miles realising that he is doing his bit to help,” says
Rupert. “ Having said that, he’s kept down in the basement most of the time so you
don’t really see him around and the other police don’t have to deal with him too
much,” he laughs. “Whenever we need information we go down to him, this sort of
‘Guru’ in the basement who has all the information at his fingertips. He’s become
quite good, he’s like this sort of wise soothsayer underneath the police station.”
For Rupert what’s appealing about how the show has moved on is that it hasn’t lost
that link with real historical crimes.
“What’s great about Whitechapel this year is how the crimes we’re solving are
fictitious, but the crimes that we use to help us are real so the audience is still getting
that wonderful authenticity when you’re still learning about the history of the
WHITECHAPEL
6
Whitechapel area,” he explains. “This makes it a lot more fun and adds atmosphere
to the show as well as learning something new and real as an actor.”
Whitechapel was filmed partly on a purpose built set in an old municipal building in
Crouch End and partly out on the streets of Brick Lane and Whitechapel as well as
other nearby East End locations. As the stories and locations have developed, so
too have the team who become more integrated and involved in the case solving.
“Everyone is more involved with the detecting side of things now, especially in the
third story,’ adds Rupert. “To begin with it was very much Chandler working things
out with the help of Miles, who basically argued with everything that Chandler said.
However, now everyone works together and individuals have been given a bit more
responsibility. The job feels like it’s a group effort and people actually contribute to
the solving of the crime rather than Llewellyn and Buchan giving us all the
information we need and Chandler putting it together. It’s much more detailed now.”
As well as having new female detective DC Megan Riley, played by Hannah Walters
join the team, audiences can also look forward to seeing a more personal side to
Chandler, though not particularly romantic.
“The audience won’t see Chandler’s private life as such they will see a chink in his
armour when he realises early on in the series that there is something missing in his
life. Chandler would like to have a family and someone to share his life with,”
explains Rupert. “He sees Miles and the life he has and Mansell and his wife and
realises that it is maybe something he needs and he gives it a go. Miles is pushing
him to try and he does give it a go but we can safely say romance is not going well
for Chandler.”
“What’s happened with Chandler in this series is that he is much more alert to
women whereas before if a beautiful woman looked at him he wouldn’t even notice.
Now, if somebody finds him attractive, he senses it right away. He still does not
know what to do about it or how to react to it but he’s aware. And it’s given me a
load of fun things to play with like moments where he wants to kiss a woman and
can’t because he doesn’t know how to.”
Another romance that Chandler isn’t quite ready for is his ‘bromance’ with DC Kent.
“Kent looks up to Chandler and when Chandler focuses in on him that makes him
happy. But I don’t think Kent is gay; it’s more like he has a sort of older brother crush
going on and wants to be like Chandler,” he says.
Having been commissioned for a series, Whitechapel is clearly continuing to capture
the imagination and attention of the audience.
“I think what keeps our audience there is the thrill,” says Rupert. “It’s that thrill factor
that they chase. How much they can take and how scared they can get before they
can’t handle it any more,” he adds. “There is a certain thrill that goes into watching
something that scares you and although Whitechapel is scary you kind of know it’s
going to be ok in the end.”
“I think it is more edge of the seat this year and certainly there are sequences in it
that are more reminiscent of a horror film than a detective show and that’s a good
thing. There should be that sense of tension there and I’ve always wanted to be in a
horror film or a slasher movie. The last story particularly reads more like a horror film
which was fantastic. It’s these sort of sequences where you’re wandering around
WHITECHAPEL
7
houses and hearing all sorts of noises and being terrified which are so much fun to
act.”
WHITECHAPEL
8
Phil Davis plays Detective Sergeant Ray Miles
Phil Davis was delighted when Whitechapel was commissioned for a third series for a
variety of reasons not least of which was an excuse to reunite him with his friend of
over ten years Rupert Penry-Jones, not to mention the prospect of a mere ten minute
walk to work.
“I love working in Hornsey Town Hall, because I live so close by. So it’s ideal for me,
and my family can pop down and see me at work. I like working here and it has a
great atmosphere.”
“It was great to be back,” he says. “We had so much fun doing the last two, and
Rupert and I are such old friends that I always enjoy working with him. It was good to
get back into the swing of it.”
Phil will be working with Rupert again in 2012 when he joins the cast of the BBC legal
drama Silk, also starring alongside Maxine Peake.
“It will be like old times in chambers with Rupert,” says Phil who is referring to the
ground-breaking predecessor to Silk, Channel 4’s acclaimed drama North Square
which was cancelled after only one series. “It was such a great series that ran for ten
episodes and was well received by the audience but Channel 4 just didn’t go for it.”
Away from the peace and quiet of Hornsey Town Hall, the cast and crew had to
contend with the streets of Whitechapel and other East End locations, which threw up
all sorts of obstacles.
“Well it’s always difficult filming in London because there’s a plane every 20 seconds.
And because of the gothic atmosphere we create in Whitechapel, it has to be filmed
at night. So it’s by no means easy. Then throw into the mix the fact that we filmed
during the summer so there isn’t a lot of darkness and certainly not like there is in
February or March which is when we filmed the first two serials,” he admits.
One thing that hasn’t changed much since the first episode is Miles’ relationship with
Buchan, despite him being a fully-fledged member on the team now.
“There is always going to be antagonism between Miles and Buchan and Miles still
thinks he’s a waste of space. He’s very sceptical about what he actually adds to the
investigation, but that’s part of the fun,’ he adds. “I mean Miles is one of those
characters who wears his heart on his sleeve and if he doesn’t like something then
you’ll find out about it.”
Where Chandler appears to have a natural interest in history and in particular the
history of Whitechapel, Miles’ interest lies in catching the criminals.
“Miles isn’t convinced that spending time going through ancient cases from the 18th
and 19th centuries will be of any use to modern day policing.”
Miles had a tough time in series two suffering from panic attacks brought on by his
father’s association with the Krays. In series three he experiences a different kind of
pressure.
“This year Miles is under a lot of strain in his personal life which is to do with his
wife’s health which inevitably has an effect on his work. He is incredibly worried
WHITECHAPEL
9
about her and with her maternal family history of terminal illness the prognosis
doesn’t look good,” he suggests.
As well as having his wife to worry about, Miles’ feelings towards Chandler have
developed to encompass something of an older brother or uncle but he is
increasingly frustrated by Chandler’s reluctance to put himself out there and find
someone to spend his life with. As a result he resorts to all kinds of tactics to secure
Chandler some dates.
“Miles does worry about Chandler’s solitary lifestyle and there is a little bit in the plot
where he tries to fix him up with various young ladies but none of them seem to work
out for one reason or another.”
The strength of Miles’ affection for Chandler comes to the surface when Chandler
does something extremely foolish on the job.
“Miles gets very angry with Chandler when he does something stupid and risks his
life,” says Phil. “So strong are Ray’s feelings that it looks for a while as if that might
be the end of their friendship.
“When new team member Megan Riley turns up for work it is clear she is a family
friend. When Miles’s wife is ill it is Megan who helps him by taking Judy away for the
weekend to cheer her up. It is a good thing to get to know the characters a bit more
and to get to know them outside of the context of the crimes.”
“Riley is a great role for me and it’s interesting to have a girl as a main character. It
was a very male environment with the last lot and so all that changes things, and
Hannah Walters plays it very well indeed” he says. “It’s a close-knit team this year
and they do seem to have a sort of autonomy, I mean this is a murder squad, so
they’re not dealing with the normal run of the mill cases.”
The cases featured in this series are all pretty gruesome in one-way or another but
does Phil remember one more than any other?
“I think all the cases affect all the policemen deep down; it must have a sort of
cumulative physiological effect,” explains Phil. “But you develop a thick skin and
these are the guys who have to deal with this stuff, just as policemen in real life have
to deal with this. It must have some kind of effect on them. I think the key is being
able to turn off when they go home - that’s what Miles can do, and that’s what
Chandler can’t do. Because he’s got no personal life, no home life, and so I think
Miles’s relationship with his wife and his family is all the more important because the
work is so difficult.”
WHITECHAPEL
10
Steve Pemberton plays Edward Buchan
For Ed Buchan, becoming part of DI Chandler’s team is like all of his Christmas’s
coming at once as Steve explains.
“It’s his dream come true in many ways,” he says. “Buchan is someone who has
very much been an aid to Chandler and although he has been proven right in
previous cases, there’s still a lot of mistrust and non-acceptance of him as a fullyfledged police aide. So for him to be able to come and move his pot-plant and his
personal knick-knacks into his own room in the police station, is his absolute dream
come true.”
Having his own office space has given Buchan a greater sense of self-importance
and confidence and ultimately more autonomy within that team as well.
“In the first story he certainly gets carried away and takes it upon himself to hold a
briefing, which is completely unofficial and very much to Chandler’s annoyance,”
explains Steve. “He takes over the incident room, has people doing the lights, calling
them ushers and commandeers the powerpoint presentation. So it’s true to say that
it all goes to his head a bit.”
Buchan’s job is to report directly to Chandler. “He’s turned himself into Jane
Tennyson in Prime Suspect and mistakenly thinks he’s more senior than he is, but
quickly gets taken down a peg or two by Chandler.”
Having his room in the basement keeps him separate from the team but one by one
the rest of the team find themselves calling on his expertise to help with the
investigations.
“He is not actually a fully fledged part of the team - its very dark and he’s happy being
surrounded by paperwork and files and historical documents, because that’s what he
knows about. He’s not so comfortable being around bodies and forensics and
autopsies in the mortuary, so he’s in the building, but locked in his own world.”
It’s not all plain sailing for Buchan and we see his confidence knocked throughout the
series.
“He sort of goes through a journey over the course of the three stories,” explains
Steve. “He starts off very confident, then he loses a lot of it in the second case
because he feels he’s made mistakes and that he hasn’t done everything he could to
help save the lives of the victims.”
“He beats himself up a lot over that until he realises, with the help of a therapist, that
he can’t save every life and that if you’re going to do this job, i.e. work for the police,
then you’ve got to accept that.”
In some ways the pressure is greater for Buchan than it is for the bone fide police
teams he works with.
“Before, in previous cases, Buchan was being asked for his opinion as an expert on
the subject, and he gave his opinion willingly as he wasn’t directly involved with it.
Now they are coming to him looking for answers in an official capacity and he
definitely feels that pressure.”
WHITECHAPEL
11
Whilst Buchan appears to seek Miles’ acceptance Steve believes it is acceptance
from the other policemen that he is really after.
“By the time we get to the final story, what you see is all the different members of the
team, Kent, Riley and Mansell, come down to seek advice from Buchan individually.
So over the series, its very cleverly done, there’s a growing acceptance. I think Miles
will be the last one to fall.”
“With a crime scene you’ve only got a limited amount of stuff you can do,” he
continues. “With the whole of crime history that’s a huge amount to try and get your
head around.”
Buchan believes that there’s a missing piece in a jigsaw and if he can just find that
missing piece, he’ll help solve a crime.
“He has a very logical way of thinking about things and some of the team like Miles
for example, rely a lot more on intuition and being face to face with a suspect or a
witness and being able to read them. I don’t think Buchan has those skills; his lie
more in academic studies. So he really beats himself up if he feels he doesn’t know
everything. So he’s under a lot of pressure.”
Steve Pemberton is known for playing off the wall characters in Psychoville but he
particularly likes playing Ed Buchan.
“There’s an awful lot in there to play with,” says Steve. “In the first serial there was
this notion that he could be a suspect, he had quite a creepy interest in Jack the
Ripper which was fun to play.
“When the second serial moved onto the Kray twins it was a more emotional kind of
Buchan that emerged as he investigated the death of Miles’ father,” he continues.
“Buchan also has some great comedic moments and some very emotional scenes
where he feels this tremendous guilt at being unable to solve the cases and he
breaks down and yet, against that backdrop, you’ve got the fruity language that he
uses with relish and that’s what I love about him.”
Steve is known for Whitchapel, The League of Gentlemen and Psychoville but has
recently turned his hand to writing Benidorm, in which he also stars and has written
three of the seven episodes in the forthcoming series.
“In terms of my writing career, I’m interested in anything that can surprise the
audience and I enjoy putting stuff on screen that you haven’t seen before which was
one of the great challenges about Psychoville,” he remarks.
“Reece Shearsmith and I have always had a very dark sense of humour and I think
that just comes out whatever we’re writing,” he laughs. “It’s the combination of horror
and comedy, of being scared one minute and laughing the next that we enjoy. Which
is a very potent combination and I’ve loved doing that.”
“Variety is also fantastic and you couldn’t get more variety than writing and acting in
Benidorm and then doing Whitechapel and Psychoville. There’s a dark message,
even in Benidorm. Just that tiny cry of darkness that people enjoy, people like stuff
that isn’t all gleaming, shining, happy families. I think it allows it to be real and we all
have a bit of darkness inside us.”
WHITECHAPEL
12
Ben Bishop plays DC Finley Mansell
Ben Bishop didn’t have to look too far from home for tips of the trade with a family
member in the police force.
“Humour is one way of dealing with difficult and often gruesome situations, my sisterin-law tells me, and in Whitechapel Mansell in particular uses his humour to lighten
the mood.”
Mansell is known as a bit of a womaniser and things get out of hand when he is
supposed to be working undercover but decides to try his luck in a club.
“Mansell is a real ladies man,” says Ben. “I think he is completely drawn to women
and having a woman in the office is a real buzz. In fact, he actually connects with
Riley more than anyone else and he likes that buzz of having female attention, he
thrives on it. So I don’t think he has a problem with it though it does get him into
trouble when he tries his hand with a girl in a club he is meant to be working
undercover in…let’s just say it is a make or break moment for him and Chandler.”
With the addition of Hannah Walters to the team Ben and the rest of the cast are
finding their softer side on camera.
“Having Riley on the team has made us guys a lot softer – it’s warmed us up no end
and that’s really good for a lot of the family scenes this year,” claims Ben. “Both Sam
and I met Hannah at the audition and there was instant chemistry between the three
of us – we got on really, really well.”
Throughout the series, Chandler and his team come face to face with their fears and
Ben thoroughly enjoyed every moment of playing these storylines.
“Mansell is feeling vulnerable since Chandler threatened him with the sack. When
his fear kicks in it really opens up in his mind,” explains Ben. “He begins to question
everything about what’s real, what’s not, what’s in his head and what isn’t. And for
me what’s exciting is actually acting out this fear - it’s a real buzz to experience those
anxious feelings.”
As Ben explains there are two camps in the station and Mansell knows firmly which
camp he belongs to.
“Mansell identifies very much with Miles and can banter with him in the office and
outside, whereas Kent looks up to Chandler. Mansell doesn’t have that connection
with Chandler and sees more of a father figure in Miles, though he has really warmed
up to Buchan and feels he has added value to the team. Mansell lives very much off
instinct and isn’t the brightest button in the box whereas Buchan is educated and has
a fierce intellect which Mansell admires.”
“They’re quite chalk and cheese but I like the idea that they work well together,” he
laughs.
WHITECHAPEL
13
Sam Stockman is DC Emerson Kent
When Sam Stockman found himself on a late night shoot during the second story
little did he know that one tiny tap would result in a props disaster!
“We were filming the second story in an eerie house that was packed full of rubbish
and booby traps and I nearly got my head chopped off,” he explains. “Everything was
carefully arranged and teetering in this room. We went into this one room and in the
scene we were filming I had to jump out of the way as quickly as possible so I asked
someone if this would fall, tapped it and it all came crashing down and the poor props
guys had to set it all up again. I wasn’t popular that night,” he laughs.
To create the dark, gothic backdrop that Whitechapel’s millions of fans find so
appealing takes a huge amount of creative skill and logistics. A challenging filming
schedule involving multiple location moves and a mix of day and night shoots means
that team spirit is required both on and off camera as Sam explains.
“Whilst doing night shoots you have to keep spirits up but with Ben, it could be the
last shot at six in the morning and he’s still behaving like a four year old so he keeps
everyone going, cast and crew alike and we all joke around. Hannah is a good laugh
as well as Phil and Rupert. Being out on location makes a nice change from being
indoors because after two weeks in the incident room you start to feel a bit cooped
up and then we get to run around outside and let off steam.”
Kent goes on quite an emotional journey during the series as the cases become
spookier and more gruesome.
“I wouldn’t say Kent is wimpy or anything like that but the cases take their toll on him
and he becomes more affected by them than anyone else. It’s not often you see
detectives on television becoming scared but I think these stories are so spooky they
push even a hardened police officer like Miles to get frightened.”
Despite letting his imagination run away with him Chandler keeps Kent in check and
forces him to snap back to reality.
“Chandler does say to him that you can’t allow yourself to believe these things and
he’s right. His mind drifts a bit and he needs someone rational to tell him to calm
down. He’s the youngest so he’s pretty childish at heart. His aunt was a psychic so
he’s been around the paranormal all his life and it’s never left him. He knows in his
head it’s not true but there’s something that intrigues him” he adds.
DC Kent’s admiration of his DI is almost at fever pitch in the new series which Sam
puts down to nothing more than a spot of hero-worship.
“I think Kent is experiencing a bit of a bromance for Chandler,” laughs Sam. “It’s
clear he idolises Joe and before he came along Kent had no one to look up to as he
was trying to make his way in the force. He got on with Miles but other than that he
was a bit of a loner. However, Chandler joined the team and was his knight in shining
armour, he’s very eager to please. Kent is also protective of him more when
Chandler begins dating because he doesn’t want to see him get hurt but that’s
because he’d miss him so much and then he’d have no one again. Bless him!”
WHITECHAPEL
14
Hannah Walters is DC Megan Riley
DC Megan Riley may be the only woman in a team of blokes and classed as one of
the boys but she is very much a woman’s woman.
“Megan is very maternal, she’s very sensitive to all the other men around her but at
the end of the day, you don’t mess with DC Riley, she can hold her own.”
“She’s had to gain the respect from the boys and we’ve worked out that Phil’s
character Miles had worked with Riley before, so with that comes a certain built in
respect,” she continues. “She’s still got to earn her place but she does it in such a
good way. She is also meticulous about her work and thoughtful and because she
can hold her own in that male environment it’s important not to have a ‘girly’ girl in
there who can take offence to any of the conversations that are happening. Believe
me she can be as foul mouthed and masculine as the rest of them.”
Despite the gruesome nature of some of the storylines, Riley is able to deal with the
difficulties of the day job with determination and resolution.
“Riley takes her job seriously but she has a solid foundation at home - a family life
and children, so for her work is work” explains Hannah.
There are certain scenes that affect Riley more than others and in particular those
involving children and young people.
“In the third story a little girl is hiding under a bed and it effects Riley quite a bit more
than the boys because she is so maternal,” says Hannah.
Hannah was a huge fan of the show and joining the cast was a dream come true for
her.
“I’ve loved it since series one,” she says. “It’s just so different from other dramas, with
complex characters and great stories. And the way it is filmed is just exquisite, the
whole thing together is absolutely superb and I was so incredibly excited to be joining
the show.”
Riley may be all about the work but for Hannah it is crucial to have a laugh on the
job.
“As our characters we do have a bit of a laugh but when we switch off, we switch off.
You’ve got to be able to do that, there’s a right time and a wrong time to do that
obviously but we’re all such different personalities we bring the naughtiness out of
each other on set when we’re not filming. There’s a lot of joking around, a lot of
banter and a lot of giggling which is a fantastic environment to work in.”
WHITECHAPEL
15
N.B. THESE SYNOPSES ARE FOR FORWARD PLANNING PURPOSES ONLY
AND WE WOULD RESPECTFULLY REQUEST THAT YOU DO NOT REPLICATE
THESE OR REVEAL THE STORYLINES THEREIN
Whitechapel III
Story One [Episodes 1 & 2]
When four people are slaughtered at night at a seemingly fortified tailor’s workshop,
the East End is gripped with fear and panic at this seemingly impossible gruesome
crime.
Chandler, Miles and the team unearth the history of the Ratcliffe Highway Murders.
Clearly not a copycat, what can Chandler and Miles learn from history, other than not
to repeat the same mistakes, which will help them solve this particularly grizzly series
of murders?
When a second mass murder occurs where there is no obvious break-in, no obvious
escape and no forensics the crimes take on an almost supernatural edge. Who or
what is responsible and how can anyone sleep soundly in their beds in Whitechapel
when doors and walls offer no protection?
Story Two [Episodes 3 & 4]
As Chandler, Miles and the team attend the christening of Miles’s daughter, Martha,
a fox runs through Whitechapel. It has a human arm in its mouth.
A torso is washed up at Putney Bridge. Both the arm and the torso show signs of
poisoning. When Llewellyn discovers traces of ‘Spanish Fly’, an aphrodisiac drug
used by the Marquis de Sade at his infamous orgies Chandler, Miles and the team
question what sort of killer they could be up against.
The investigation in Story 2 references historical cases of poisoning, the Thames
Torso murders, and the serial killer HH Holmes.
Story Three [Episodes 5 & 6]
At the end of a shift, news comes in that a dangerous patient, Calvin Mantus, has
escaped from a psychiatric unit. Originally from Whitechapel, Mantus killed his
parents and young sister ten years ago, and left them macabrely posed in a Sunday
lunch setting.
When a babysitter is murdered, and the area becomes the focus of a series of
terrifying events in quick succession, Chandler, Miles and the team must act fast as
they fear a masked spree killer is on the loose.
Story 3 uses the conventions of 1970s/1980s slasher films to create a terrifying killer,
a reincarnation of the bogeyman for Chandler to track down.
WHITECHAPEL
16
Whitechapel – Real life cases highlighted by Buchan in the series
Story 1
Ratcliffe Highway Murders
The Ratcliffe Highway murders were two vicious attacks that resulted in multiple
fatalities, and occurred over twelve days in the year 1811, in homes half a mile apart
near Wapping in London.
The first attack took place on 7th December 1811 at a home behind a linen draper’s
shop on Ratcliffe Highway (now called The Highway). The victims were Timothy Marr
(a 24 year old linen draper and hosier), his wife Celia, their 3-month-old son Timothy
and James Gowen, their shop boy. Margaret Jewell, a servant of the Marrs, had
been sent to purchase oysters, and subsequently escaped. The murder caused the
government to offer a reward of 500 guineas for the apprehension of the perpetrator.
Twelve days later on the 19th December, the second attack happened at The Kings
Arms in New Gravel Lane (now Garnet street). The victims were John Williamson, 56
year old publican who had been at the Kings Arms for 15 years, his 60 year old wife
Elizabeth and Bridget Anna Harrington in her late 50's, a servant. Williamson's 14year-old granddaughter, Catherine (Kitty) Stillwell, slept through the incident and was
thus not discovered. John Turner, a lodger and journeyman, discovered the murders
and escaped out of an upper window, using a knotted sheet to climb down to the
street below.
A principal suspect in the murders, John Williams (also known as Murphy), was a
lodger at the nearby Pear Tree public house in Old Wapping. He was a 27-year-old
Scottish or Irish seaman. He had nursed a grievance against Marr from when they
were shipmates, but the subsequent murders at the Kings Arms remain unexplained.
Williams was arrested, but committed suicide by hanging himself in prison; he was
buried with a stake through his heart at the junction of Commercial Road and Cannon
Street Road.
Charles Manson, 1969, Sharon Tate
On the night of August 8, Manson directed Charles Watson to take Susan Atkins,
Linda Kasabian, and Patricia Krenwinkel to "that house where Melcher used to live"
and "totally destroy everyone in [it], as gruesome as you can." He told the women to
do as Watson would instruct them. The current occupants of the house, all of whom
were strangers to the Manson followers, were movie actress Sharon Tate, wife of
famed director Roman Polanski and eight and a half months pregnant; her friend and
former lover, hairstylist Jay Sebring; Polanski's friend and aspiring screenwriter
Wojciech Frykowski, and Frykowski’s lover Abigail Folger, heiress to the Folger
coffee fortune. Tate's husband, Polanski, was in London working on a film project;
Tate had been visiting with him and had returned to the United States only three
weeks earlier.
Richard Farley
Richard Farley is an American convicted mass murderer. A former employee of
Electromagnetic Systems Labs (ESL) in Sunnyvale, California, he stalked co-worker
Laura Black for four years beginning in 1984. Black obtained a temporary restraining
order against him on February 2, 1988, with a court date set for February 17, 1988 to
make the order permanent. On February 16, 1988, Farley shot and killed seven
people at ESL and wounded four others, including Black. He was convicted of seven
counts of first degree murder, and is currently sitting on death row at San Quentin.
WHITECHAPEL
17
Story 2
The Thames Torso mystersties of 1887-1889
The Whitehall Mystery is an unsolved murder from London in 1888. The
dismembered remains of a woman were found at three different sites in central
London, including the future site of Scotland Yard. Newspapers suggested a tie to
Jack the Ripper's killings of prostitutes that were occurring simultaneously, but the
Metropolitan Police said there was no connection.
Mary Ann Cotton
Born Mary Ann Robson in October 1832 in Low Moorsley, County Durham, she died
24 March 1873. She was an English woman convicted of murdering her husband and
children and is believed to have murdered up to 21 people, mainly by arsenic
poisoning.
Mary Wilson – killed four lovers with phosphorus and claimed they took it in ‘sexual
stimulation pills’s
Mary Wilson (c. 1893 - 1963) also known as the Merry widow of Windy Nook, was a
serial killer and the last woman to be sentenced to death in Durham, in 1958.
However the sentence was not carried out as it was commuted to a prison sentence.
An exhumation of the bodies of her last two husbands revealed high levels of
phosphorus. Her defense claimed the substance was contained in their medication.
Wilson was convicted of murdering two of her four husbands with beetle poison in
1956 and 1957. The remains of her earlier two husbands were exhumed at a later
date and pointed to the same cause of death.
Dr Crippen
Dr. Crippen, was an American homeopathic physician hanged in Pentonville Prison,
London, on 23 November 1910, for the murder of his wife, Cora Henrietta Crippen. A
theory, which was first propounded by Edward Marshall Hall, was that Crippen was
using hyoscine on his wife as a depressant or an aphrodisiac but accidentally gave
her an overdose and then panicked when she died.
The Lonely heart Killers
Raymond Fernandez and Martha Beck, who met after Beck placed a lonely-hearts
ad, became known as "The Lonely Hearts Killers" after their arrest and trial for serial
murder in 1949. Between 1947 and 1949 they are believed to have killed as many as
twenty women.
The Black Eyed Borgia and her Playboy lover
Mary Frances Creighton and Everett Appelgate, both convicted and executed for the
murder of Ada Creighton (Appelgate’s wife) from arsenic poisoning.
H.H.Holmes
(May 16, 1861[1] – May 7, 1896), better known under the alias of Dr. Henry Howard
Holmes, was one of the first documented American serial killers in the modern sense
of the term. In Chicago at the time of the 1893 World's Fair, Holmes opened a hotel
which he had designed and built for himself specifically with murder in mind, and
which was the location of many of his murders. While he confessed to 27 murders, of
which nine were confirmed, his actual body count could be as high as 250. He took
an unknown number of his victims from the 1893 Chicago World's Fair, which was
less than 2 miles away from his "World's Fair" hotel.
WHITECHAPEL
18
Marquis de Sade
An episode in Marseille, in 1772, involved the non-lethal poisoning of prostitutes with
the supposed aphrodisiac Spanish fly and sodomy with his manservant Latour. That
year the two men were sentenced to death in absentia for sodomy and said
poisoning.
Thomas Huskey, 1999 Knoxville, Tennessee
Accused killer of 4 women in Tennessee. Nicknamed the "Zoo Man", Huskey worked
at the Knoxville Zoo and allegedly took his victims here. He talked of ‘Kyle’, a
separate, darker personality that was responsible for a series of murders.
Arthur Ford, 1954
Arthur Ford became infatuated with a woman called Betty Grant who worked in his
office on Euston Road. He bought a coconut nice for both Betty and a friend that he
had laced with cantharidin; both died after eating it.
Story 3
Bogeyman
A bogeyman is an amorphous imaginary being used by adults to frighten children
into compliant behaviour. The monster has no specific appearance, and conceptions
about it can vary drastically from household to household within the same
community; in many cases, he has no set appearance in the mind of an adult or
child, but is simply a non-specific embodiment of terror. Parents may tell their
children that if they misbehave, the bogeyman will get them. Bogeymen may target a
specific mischief — for instance, a bogeyman that punishes children who suck their
thumbs — or general misbehavior, depending on what purpose needs serving. In
some cases, the bogeyman is a nickname for the devil.
Zodiac Killer
Masked serial killer in California in 1960s/1970s who said that ‘hunting humans was
the most exciting of all sports’
The Phantom
US, 1940s. Killed on full moons, wore a white mask and attacked eight by the light of
the moon. Of whom the sheriff said “no one sees him, no one hears him in time.”
Robert Williams
The case of the man who killed a girl in Hyde Park in 1928. The man claimed that the
film ‘London After Midnight’ sent him insane, and that he saw Lon Chaney in the
park, forcing him to murder the girl with a razor.
Scared to death
In 1840, Sir Robert Warboys had heard of a tale of a parlour maid who had seen the
spectral presence and had been driven insane. He wanted to disprove the haunting,
and armed with a shotgun, went to spend the night in the attic room. The house was
woken at midnight when a shot rang out. They found Warboys dead from fright.
Then in 1878, Lord Lyttleton stayed the night. He loaded his gun with silver
sixpennies said to ward off evil. For him it worked and he survived to tell the tale.
Couple on a spree together – Caril Ann Fugate and Charles Starkweather.
Nebraska, 1957. Charles Starkweather and Caril Ann Fugate. They killed 11 in all.
Including her parents and two year old sister. She was only 14 at the time. Nobody
WHITECHAPEL
19
knows how many she killed. She said she was held hostage by Starkweather. He
said she was a willing participant. He was executed in 1959. She was paroled in
1976. And to this day she has never spoken of the murders, so no one knows how
involved she really was.
Tsuyama Massacre
The Tsuyama massacre was a spree killing that occurred on 21 May 1938 in the rural
village of Kaio close to Tsuyama city in Okayama, Japan.
Mutsuo Toi, a 21-year-old man, killed 30 people, including his grandmother, with a
shotgun, Japanese sword, and axe, and seriously injured three others before killing
himself with the shotgun. Until the 1982 killing by Woo Bum-kon, this incident was re
WHITECHAPEL
20
CARNIVAL FILMS
Carnival is one of the UK's leading production companies. In 2011, in addition to
producing the second series of the critically acclaimed Downton Abbey and a two
hour Christmas episode for ITV1, Carnival also collected six Primetime Emmy
Awards and two Bafta Awards for the show that has been sold in over 200 territories
around the world. The company also produced the multi Bafta award-winning
adaptation of William Boyd's Any Human Heart for Channel 4 and production has
recently completed on the latest series of Whitechapel, the popular and original crime
drama for ITV1. In 2011 Carnival has also been a producer on David Hare's
television film, Page Eight for the BBC and is currently in production with Neal Street
on Sam Mendes’ cycle of four Shakespeare history plays, again for the BBC.
Originally founded over thirty years ago, the company has brought hundreds of hours
of popular television and film to audiences worldwide, from series such as Poirot,
Jeeves & Wooster, Hotel Babylon, As If and Rosemary & Thyme to powerful
international mini-series such as Traffik, The Philanthropist and The Grid to classics
such as Shadowlands and Porterhouse Blue.
Carnival is run by producer Gareth Neame who in 2008 sold the company to
NBCUniversal as the cornerstone of its new international TV business. In 2007,
Sally Woodward Gentle joined the company as Creative Director. NBCUniversal
International Television Production is headed by Michael Edelstein, President. To
complement Carnival’s success in drama, Edelstein has established an impressive
range of television production labels covering all genres. Monkey Kingdom
specialises in entertainment and produces the hit reality drama series, Made in
Chelsea for E4 and Newlyweds for Bravo. Additionally, Chocolate Media is
NBCUniversal International’s factual entertainment brand. More latterly, in 2011,
NBCUniversal announced a majority investment in Australian-based Matchbox
Pictures, producers of critically acclaimed drama series, The Slap, an adaptation of
Christos Tsiolkas’s best-selling novel, currently transmitting on BBC Four.
December 2011
WHITECHAPEL
21