REVIEW
✭✭✭✭☆ 4/5
Killing Jack – Sadie Hasler
Queen’s Theatre Hornchurch
Billet Lane
Hornchurch |
RM11 1QT
Killing Jack takes back the Victims’ stories from Jack the Ripper
✭✭✭✭☆ 4/5
Killing Jack – Sadie Hasler
Queen’s Theatre Hornchurch
Billet Lane
Hornchurch |
RM11 1QT
Killing Jack takes back the Victims’ stories from Jack the Ripper
All photos: Mark Sepple
It is Halloween in 2023 and Maz (Hanna Khogali) and Jules (Caitlin Scott) get out the Victorian dressing up box, and head out to town. They find themselves in Whitechapel where in 1888 five women were brutally slaughtered by a man known as Jack the Ripper. There they meet a tour guide, Christopher, (Charlie Buckland) doing Jack the Ripper talks and walks. He uses what he calls Killer Vision to flash up gory images of the Ripper’s victims to illustrate his tales. The legend of the killer has taken over that of the unfortunate victims who have become secondary to it.
Unbeknownst to them, they are under the watchful eye of the ghostly visions of the murdered women. This is brilliantly conveyed by the special effects of flashing lights, and sound effects under the guidance of Stephen Pemble, and Steve Mayo. When Maz, like many other young women being in the wrong place at the wrong time, is murdered, the ghostly visions come to life and form a protest group. Their message is presented with humour especially when Victorian women don’t understand the inventions of modern life such as tea bags.
Local playwright Sadie Hasler has brilliantly connected the two periods in this clever script. The past and the present mix together as actors playing the murdered women of the past double up as women in the present. Jack the Ripper never appears instead, the victims who are usually side lined and dismissed as prostitutes or women of the street, are given a voice.
In the play they are presented as women living in poverty, with a back-story of trying to provide for their families. Women escaping domestic violence, living on the streets because there was nowhere to go. When in 2023, the police portray the victim’s death as a result of a drunken accident, even though told that Maz wasn’t drunk, Jules is supported by the women of the protest group. The living dead, are now at large, taking up a campaign for women during Halloween.
Sadie’s interpretation is not just a dark, Victorian thriller; it has humour and even more surprisingly, music as the women's lives are told in song. At certain moments, each woman steps forward and sings about her life. The lyrics written by Sadie herself with the music provided by Paul Herbert. These stylised renditions reminded me of the Beggars Opera and really brought the play to life. Unlike most productions about this period that centre on the identity of Jack, in this he is an irrelevance. It puts the victims, Polly, Annie, Liz, Kate and Mary Jane at the centre.
As this work is an ensemble production, it is difficult to single out any particular performance as all the characters are so strongly portrayed. Doubling up as a police officer, a news reporter and the mothers of Maz and Jules, they hold the stage with humour, as they tell their stories. It was interesting when Hanna playing murdered Maz doubles up as the victim Mary Jane, who has no voice. She suddenly finds it so she can convince Christopher the tour guide, that he should be revealing the truth about the Ripper’s victims.
Particularly moving was the scene with Maz’s drug addicted, alcoholic mother Tricia (Jessica Johnson) at the mortuary. She explains to Jules that she has straightened herself out to make her daughter proud, but it is too late.
This thought provoking play shows that even today nothing has changed. The victims were slut shamed then, and young murdered women are still being so now. As recent events have shown, if you’re in the wrong place at the wrong time, and walk home alone late at night, anything can happen. Meanwhile, the villain Jack is still of great interest to the world whilst his victims are forgotten.
Under the excellent direction of Caroline Leslie, Killing Jack enters a world where victims return to take back their stories. It ends on a high note where the women are no longer a footnote in history, but provided with remembrance blue plaques.
As Sadie Hasler says, ‘A play in their honour is a drop in the ocean of what they deserve. But these remarkable women will never leave me now – they are real heroines with permanent residence in my heart. I hope they’ll find that in others too.’
As an aside, it would have been helpful for programme notes to have headshots of the actors with information regarding their parts. However, there were stands with factual information regarding the victims in the foyer that made interesting reading.
Review Jacquee Storozynski-Toll
Unbeknownst to them, they are under the watchful eye of the ghostly visions of the murdered women. This is brilliantly conveyed by the special effects of flashing lights, and sound effects under the guidance of Stephen Pemble, and Steve Mayo. When Maz, like many other young women being in the wrong place at the wrong time, is murdered, the ghostly visions come to life and form a protest group. Their message is presented with humour especially when Victorian women don’t understand the inventions of modern life such as tea bags.
Local playwright Sadie Hasler has brilliantly connected the two periods in this clever script. The past and the present mix together as actors playing the murdered women of the past double up as women in the present. Jack the Ripper never appears instead, the victims who are usually side lined and dismissed as prostitutes or women of the street, are given a voice.
In the play they are presented as women living in poverty, with a back-story of trying to provide for their families. Women escaping domestic violence, living on the streets because there was nowhere to go. When in 2023, the police portray the victim’s death as a result of a drunken accident, even though told that Maz wasn’t drunk, Jules is supported by the women of the protest group. The living dead, are now at large, taking up a campaign for women during Halloween.
Sadie’s interpretation is not just a dark, Victorian thriller; it has humour and even more surprisingly, music as the women's lives are told in song. At certain moments, each woman steps forward and sings about her life. The lyrics written by Sadie herself with the music provided by Paul Herbert. These stylised renditions reminded me of the Beggars Opera and really brought the play to life. Unlike most productions about this period that centre on the identity of Jack, in this he is an irrelevance. It puts the victims, Polly, Annie, Liz, Kate and Mary Jane at the centre.
As this work is an ensemble production, it is difficult to single out any particular performance as all the characters are so strongly portrayed. Doubling up as a police officer, a news reporter and the mothers of Maz and Jules, they hold the stage with humour, as they tell their stories. It was interesting when Hanna playing murdered Maz doubles up as the victim Mary Jane, who has no voice. She suddenly finds it so she can convince Christopher the tour guide, that he should be revealing the truth about the Ripper’s victims.
Particularly moving was the scene with Maz’s drug addicted, alcoholic mother Tricia (Jessica Johnson) at the mortuary. She explains to Jules that she has straightened herself out to make her daughter proud, but it is too late.
This thought provoking play shows that even today nothing has changed. The victims were slut shamed then, and young murdered women are still being so now. As recent events have shown, if you’re in the wrong place at the wrong time, and walk home alone late at night, anything can happen. Meanwhile, the villain Jack is still of great interest to the world whilst his victims are forgotten.
Under the excellent direction of Caroline Leslie, Killing Jack enters a world where victims return to take back their stories. It ends on a high note where the women are no longer a footnote in history, but provided with remembrance blue plaques.
As Sadie Hasler says, ‘A play in their honour is a drop in the ocean of what they deserve. But these remarkable women will never leave me now – they are real heroines with permanent residence in my heart. I hope they’ll find that in others too.’
As an aside, it would have been helpful for programme notes to have headshots of the actors with information regarding their parts. However, there were stands with factual information regarding the victims in the foyer that made interesting reading.
Review Jacquee Storozynski-Toll
Killing Jack continues 30th October – 11th November 2023
Friday 27 October 2023- Saturday 11 November 7.30pm Matinees Thurs & Sat 2.30pm
7.30pm
Prices
£12.50* - £29* | Under 26s £8
*+65p Q Next fee
Running Time
2hrs 30mins including interval
Box Office Team on 01708 443333 or email [email protected]