Doctor Who On This Day #214

1969 - The War Games, Episode 7 broadcast

2008 - Silence in the Library first screened, and DW

Confidential: Shadow Play also screened on BBC3

2010 - Cold Blood repeated on BBC3 and HD; and
The Beast of Orlok, Episode 1 repeated on Radio 7

2011 - Cradle of the Snake, Episodes 3 repeated and
4 first broadcast on Radio 4 Extra

2012 - The Architects of History, Episode 1 repeated

on Radio 4 Extra

Doctor Who On This Day #213

1964 - The Aztecs, Episode 2: The Warriors of Death broadcast

1970 - Inferno, Episode 4 first screened
1993 - Inferno Omnibus repeated on UK Gold
1999 - Composer Don Harper died in Australia, aged 78
2000 - The Web of Fear premiered at the Portsmouth Arts Centre
 Performed by the Bedlam Theatre Co. and reworked as two 50-
minute plays, the script was adapted by Rob Thrush - also cast as
Colonel Lethbridge Stewart - Nick Scovell played the Doctor,
John-Paul McCrohon was Jamie, and Nancy Holloway was Victoria 

2003 - Shada, Episode 5 released on BBCi

2010 - The Beast of Orlok, Episode 1 first broadcast on Radio 7

2011 - The Almost People repeated on BBC3; and Cradle
 of the Snake, Episode 3 first broadcast on Radio 4 Extra

2012 - Survival of the Fittest, Episode 4 repeated; and
The Architects of History, Episode 1 first broadcast, both
on Radio 4 Extra

The Ripper and the Whoniverse, Part 5 (Revised)

This post explores the most recent Jack the Ripper references in Doctor Who media, namely the three-part comic series, The Ripper's Curse. Released last year by IDW Publishing, and written by Tony Lee, this graphic novel offers another fictional interpretation of the Whitechapel Murders. Unlike Matrix, this story features many real-life people involved in the case. Now, the Eleventh Doctor must stop Jack's reign of terror.

Part One opens in the early hours of September 30th, 1888. A stranger offers to walk 'Long Liz' home to Spitalfields. Sensing another customer, the prostitute agrees, and on reaching Berner Street she proffers a bag of "cashous" sweets, but he suddenly stuns her with a nerve paralytic. By 1am, Liz lies dead, and as Louis Diemschutz turns his cart into Dutfield's Yard he makes a grim discovery. The killer (now reverting to human form) flees just as the TARDIS materialises nearby. As the Doctor exits, his sonic screwdriver detects Kryon energy, which has pulled his ship to Earth. The police activity in the street attracts the travellers and the Doctor is asked to examine the murdered woman: "her throat was cut, she died... instantly" he comments, and rushes off to confront the same stranger. The Doctor discovers "a reptile in a shimmer suit..." [i] emitting "a lot of... radiation... from the Matrua Nebula." Meanwhile, Amy and Rory introduce themselves as Miss Marple [ii] and Inspector Clouseau [iii], of CSI London!

We then witness Sir Charles Warren being quizzed by Tom Bullen of the Central News Agency, about the Ripper and the 'Dear Boss' letter [iv]. Warren declares the correspondence a hoax, then is informed of this victim's details: "Elizabeth Stride, aged 44, throat slashed, killler interrupted" [3]. She had been seen earlier by PC Smith, with a fair-haired man. Warren then reads Rory's ID from the psychic paper: he's the Earl of Leadworth, the actual inspiration for Doyle's Sherlock Holmes!

Amy now realises the truth - this is "the night of the double murder" and they must get to Mitre Square to save Catherine Eddowes [4] - "she's next!" Inspector Frederick Abberline now arrives and deduces that the killer is right-handed, contrary to current opinion [v].

Amy sees the alien Ripper as she enters the Square, but she's too late to prevent the next canonical murder, and is herself stunned by a dart to her neck. The Doctor appears just in time to save Amy by attacking the reptile's noise-sensitive "tympanic membranes" with his screwdriver. The police arrive and arrest the Doctor at this new murder scene. Bullen announces, news-vendor style "...Ripper captured!"

"Next: The Ripper's Gift"

Notes:

 [i] Akin to the 'Shimmer' technology employed by the Vinvocci in The End of Time.

[ii] Agatha Christie's English spinster sleuth, Jane Marple, appeared in 12 crime novels and 20 short stories, and in many film, TV, radio, and stage versions (she is also mentioned in The Unicorn and the Wasp by a tactless Donna: "Come on Agatha, what would Miss Marple do?").

[iii] Bungling French detective, Jacques Clouseau, appeared in The Pink Panther films, and was played by Peter Sellers. It's telling that in comic-form, Rory is still percieved as a bumbler, and given the guise of Clouseau. Later however, Rory presents himself (via the psychic paper) as a Dr. Joseph Bell-like figure, who actually inspired the uber-detective, Holmes. There is a long tradition of Ripper/Holmes fiction, and Conan Doyle even theorised a 'Jill the Ripper' suspect - read Dr. Watson's account of the killings in Dust and Shadow (by Lyndsay Faye, 2009) and the new ebook, Whitechapel: The Final Stand of Sherlock Holmes by Bernard Schaffer. Doyle met Bell in 1877, and served as his clerk in Edinburgh. Their working relationship was the basis of Murder Rooms (BBC, 2000-01): the first serial even featured Dr Thomas Cream (1850-1892), another candidaite for Jack. Supposedly, Bell submitted the name of his Ripper suspect to the police, and a week later the murders ceased. Doyle appeared in John Peel's Evolution (Virgin, 1994) and Revenge of the Judoon by Terrance Dicks (BBC, 2008), and he was even known to Redvers Fenn-Cooper, (see Ghost Light, 1989).
[iv] Inspector John Littlechild, who named Dr. Tumblety as a Ripper suspect in 1913, also revealed that journalist Bullen (in fact, Thomas Bulling) and his editor, John Moore, were the true authors of the 'Dear Boss' letter.

[v] Here, Rory compares (the real Inspector) Abberline to (the fictional one, played by) Johnny Depp, as seen in From Hell.

Doctor Who On This Day #212

1965 - The Chase, Episode 2: The Death of Time broadcast

1971 - The Daemons, Episode 2 first screened

2005 - The Doctor Dances repeated on BBC3
2007 - The Idiot's Lantern repeated on BBC4
2009 - Last of the Time Lords repeated on BBC3

2010 - Cold Blood first screened, and DW Confidential:
What Goes on Tour... also screened

2011 - The Almost People repeated on BBC3

2012 - Survival of the Fittest, Episodes 3 repeated

and 4 first broadcast on Radio 4 Extra

Doctor Who On This Day #211

1940 - Director Frank Cox born in England
1966 - The Savages, Episode 1 broadcast

2005 - The Doctor Dances first screened, and DW
Confidential: Weird Science also screened on BBC3
2006 - The Idiot's Lantern repeated on BBC3
2009 - The Sound of Drums repeated on BBC3
2010 - The Hungry Earth repeated on BBC3

2011 - The Almost People first screened, DW Confidential:
Take Two screened on BBC3; The Rebel Flesh repeated on BBC3;
and Cradle of the Snake, Episode 2 repeated on Radio 4 Extra
2012 - Survival of the Fittest, Episode 3 first broadcast on
Radio 4 Extra

Doctor Who On This Day #210

1926 - Writer Peter Ling born in Croydon
1967 - The Evil of the Daleks, Episode 2 first broadcast

1972 - The Time Monster, Episode 2 first screened

1974 - The Sea Devils Omnibus repeated on BBC1

1981 - Writer Dr Christopher Magnus Howard 'Kit' Pedler died

in Doddington, Kent, aged 53

1996 - Doctor Who TV Movie first screened in the UK

2006 - The Idiot's Lantern first screened, and DW

Confidential: The Writer's Tale also screened on BBC3
2007 - Human Nature repeated on BBC3

2009 - Utopia repeated on BBC3

2011 - The Rebel Flesh repeated on BBC3; and Cradle of the
Snake, Episodes 1 repeated and 2 first broadcast on Radio 4 Extra
2012 - Daleks in Manhattan repeated on Watch

Doctor Who On This Day #209

1913 - Actor Peter Wilton Cushing born in Kenley, Surrey
1927 - Director Julia Smith born in London

1973 - The Green Death, Episode 2 first broadcast
2006 - Rise of the Cybermen repeated on BBC3

2007 - Human Nature first screened, and DW

Confidential: Alter Ego also screened on BBC3
2009 - Blink repeated on BBC3

2011 - Cradle of the Snake, Episode 1 first broadcast

on Radio 4 Extra

2012 - Amy's Choice repeated on BBC3; and Survival
of the Fittest, Episode 2 repeated on Radio 4 Extra

Doctor Who On This Day #208

1968 - The Wheel in Space, Episode 5 broadcast

1974 - Planet of the Spiders, Part 4 first screened
2006 - The Girl in the Fireplace repeated on BBC3
2007 - 42 repeated on BBC3

2009 - The Family of Blood repeated on BBC3

2011 - The Whispering Forest, Episode 4 first broadcast on Radio 4 Extra
2012 - Flesh and Stone and The Vampires of Venice both repeated on BBC3; Blue Peter [featuring Good As Gold] repeated on BBC1; and Survival of the Fittest, Episodes 1 repeated and 2 first broadcast on Radio 4 Extra
2013 - Asylum of the Daleks, Dinosaurs on a Spaceship, and A Town Called Mercy all first screened on France 4

Doctor Who On This Day #207

1945 - Producer Richard Graham Williams born
1969 - The War Games, Episode 6 broadcast

1986 - Writer Robert Colin Holmes died in Oxford, aged 60
2006 - School Reunion repeated on BBC3

2010 - Orbis, Episode 2 repeated on Radio 7; and
The Hungry Earth repeated on BBC HD

2011 - The Whispering Forest, Episode 3 first broadcast
 on Radio 4 Extra
2012 - Script to Screen episode, Good as Gold, screened
on Blue Peter on CBBC; A Thousand Tiny Wings, Episode
3 repeated; and Survival of the Fittest, Episode 1 first
 broadcast, both on Radio 4 Extra

Doctor Who On This Day #206

1964 - The Aztecs, Episode 1: The Temple of Evil broadcast

1970 - Inferno, Episode 3 first screened
1993 - The Ambassadors of Death, Episodes 5 to 7 repeated
on UK Gold

2003 - Shada, Episode 4 released on BBCi
2006 - Tooth and Claw repeated on BBC3

2010 - Orbis, Episode 2 first broadcast on Radio 7; and
The Hungry Earth repeated on BBC3

2011 - The Rebel Flesh repeated on BBC3; and The Whispering
Forest, Episode 2 first broadcast  on Radio 4 Extra
2012 - A Thousand Tiny Wings, Episode 3 first broadcast
on Radio 4 Extra

Doctor Who On This Day #205

1965 - The Chase, Episode 1: The Executioners broadcast and

TV Movie composer John Sponsler born in Grand Rapids, Michigan

1971 - The Daemons, Episode 1 first screened

2005 - The Empty Child repeated on BBC3
2006 - New Earth repeated on BBC3

2010 - The Hungry Earth first screened, and DW

Confidential: After Effects also screened on BBC3

2011 - The Rebel Flesh repeated on BBC3
2012 - A Thousand Tiny Wings, Episodes 1 repeated
and 2 first broadcast on Radio 4 Extra

Doctor Who On This Day #204

1966 - The Gunfighters, Episode 4: The OK Corral first broadcast

2005 - The Empty Child first screened, and DW Confidential:
 Special Effects also screened on BBC3
2006 - The Age of Steel repeated on BBC3
2009 - Human Nature repeated on BBC3
2010 - Amy's Choice repeated on BBC3

2011 - The Rebel Flesh first screened; DW Confidential:
Double Trouble screened on BBC3; The Doctor's Wife
repeated on BBC3; and The Whispering Forest, Episode 1
repeated on Radio 4 Extra
2012 - A Thousand Tiny Wings, Episode 1 first broadcast
on Radio 4 Extra

The Ripper and the Whoniverse, Part 4 (Revised)

This post follows my examination of the novel Matrix, and looks at the further Jack the Ripper links in Doctor Who media since The Talons of Weng-Chiang was first broadcast in 1977. 

The serial opens as eight women (not specified here as  prostitutes), including Emma Buller, have now gone missing in East London, and the action seems to be set soon after the 'Autumn of Terror' as Casey refers to 'Jolly Jack'. In the draft script, Casey added that the recent disappearances can't be the Ripper's work because he's in Canada. This remark alludes to Prince Albert Victor, a suspect in the Royal conspiracy theory, advanced in Stephen Knight's book, The Final Solution, published just months before the story was broadcast. 

Location filming for the serial took place in Wapping, whilst it's supposed setting of Limehouse - just east of Whitechapel - housed a large Chinese community in Victorian times, and was also the site of Fu Manchu's hideout in the books of Sax Rohmer (surely another influence for writer Robert Holmes). The opium dens of Limehouse - seen here as the final refuge of Li H'Sen Chang - inspired Dickens, and featured in the From Hell novel (1991-96, 1999) and film (2001).

Both books, The Shadow of Weng-Chiang (David McIntee/Virgin, 1996) and The Bodysnatchers (Mark Morris/BBC, 1997) set a date of 1889 for Talons (the character of Professor Litefoot returns in the latter novel, wherein Sam asks the Eigth Doctor if he knows the Ripper's identity).

Knight's thesis that Queen Victoria's own physician, Sir William Gull was the Ripper (expanded from Dr Thomas Stowell's 1970 article in The Criminologist) has been perpetuated by two Jack the Ripper TV drama series (BBC, 1973 and Thames, 1988), and the films Murder by Decree (1979), The Ripper (1997), and From Hell.

Nigel Robinson's novel Birthright (Virgin, 1993) is set in the London of 1909. More grisly murders in the East End are apparently the work of the legendary 'Spring Heeled Jack' who first terrorised the capital in the 1830's. Again the seventh Doctor exposes the real killers - the insectoid Chaarl, and Ace even visits Hanbury Street, scene of the second Ripper murder [2]. This flying fiend always evaded capture, and the last account of this 'Jack' came in 1904 when he leapt over the roofs of Everton in Liverpool, to escape yet again (the 2011 series of Luther on BBC1 featured the 'Punch' killer who is obsessed with this other Victorian bogeyman).

The Doctor Who play Hellblossom (2000, 2002, 2010) also features an alien 'Spring Heeled Jack', here revealed as the Hybrid. Similarly, in two versions of Johnny Byrne's The Time Lord scripts (1988-90), the Doctor (disguised as a prostitute) despatches the Ripper, in reality the shape-shifting Weazll.

In Excelis Rising (Big Finish, 2002) a parallel series of murders took place on the planet Artaris. Grayvorn tells the Doctor that the "Eastern slums prostitute murderer was identified and hanged... the murders stopped". This reflects yet another theory that the sudden cessation of the slayings was the result of the Ripper's capture, and the truth covered-up.

The seventh Doctor was present in Whitechapel prior to Matrix, in Neil Penswick's The Pit (Virgin, 1993). Here, his companion, the poet William Blake, discovers the date of their arrival from the Evening News. The headline for September 30th 1888 reads: "Jack the Ripper strikes again" which presumably reports the 'double event' of that morning. Stride [3] however is only murdered later on in the book. Then, lost in the alleyways, Blake sees the killer armed with his knife and is scared off by a policeman. Later in the Old Nags Head pub, Blake hears of another murder and proceeds to Berner Street, where the Doctor examines the victim, Stride, and concludes that the killing seems to be ritualistic. They soon encounter the real culprits - the fanatical Fellowship, who sacrificed the women, a nod to the actual Masonic links of the Royal conspiracy.

TO BE CONTINUED.

KEY Canonical Murders:

[1] Mary Ann Nicholls - Buck's Row, Friday August 31st 1888

[2] Annie Chapman - Hanbury St. Saturday September 8th

[3] Elizabeth Stride - Berner St. Sunday September 30th

[4] Catherine Eddowes - Mitre Square, also September 30th

[5] Mary Jane Kelly - Miller's Court, Friday November 9th

Doctor Who On This Day #203

1926 - Writer John Lucarotti born in Aldershot
1966 - Director Mervyn Pinfield died, aged 54

1967 - The Evil of the Daleks, Episode 1 first broadcast

1972 - The Time Monster, Episode 1 first screened
1977 - Director Lennie Mayne died at sea, aged 49

1996 - Actor John Devon Roland Pertwee died in Timber Lake,  Connecticut, aged 76

2006 - The Age of Steel first screened, and Doctor Who Confidential: From Zero to Hero also screened on BBC3

2007 - 42 repeated on BBC3
2009 - 42 repeated on BBC3

2011 - The Doctor's Wife repeated on BBC3 and HD; The Whispering Forest, Episode 1 first broadcast; and Cobwebs, Episode 4 repeated, both on Radio 4 Extra
2013 - The Long Game and Father's Day both repeated on BBC America; The Fires of Pompeii repeated on Watch; and Doctor Who's Greatest Moments: The Aliens repeated on ABC

Doctor Who On This Day #202

1973 - The Green Death, Episode 1 first broadcast
2006 - Producer, Peter Bryant died in London, aged 82; and Rise of the Cybermen repeated on BBC3

2007 - 42 first screened, and Doctor Who Confidential: Space Craft also screened on BBC3

2009 - The Lazarus Experiment repeated on BBC3

2011 - Cobwebs, Episodes 3 repeated and 4 first broadcast, both on Radio 4 Extra

2012 - The Time of Angels repeated on BBC3
2013 - The Name of the Doctor first screened in Australia, South Africa and Poland, and repeated on BBC America; Frontios and Resurrection of the Daleks both repeated on UKTV; The Rebel Flesh repeated on BBC Entertainment Europe; and The Doctor's Wife repeated on BBC Nordic

Doctor Who Vs. The House That Dripped Blood

Shown on the Horror channel last night, the British anthology feature, The House That Dripped Blood, starred the newly cast Third Doctor actor, Jon Pertwee (pictured in a similar costume, as Paul Henderson); cinema Doctor, Peter Cushing (as Philip Grayson); and future 'Unbound' Time Lord, Geoffrey Bayldon (as Von Hartmann).

Released in 1971, the film consisted of four linked short stories, all scripted by Robert Bloch - the famous writer of Psycho (1960). Here, a Scotland Yard detective investigates four mysteries, all centred on the eponymous building.

Distributed by Amicus, the movie was produced by Max Rosenberg and Milton Subotsky - the co-producers of the two Dalek films of the 1960's - and also featured the following 'classic' Doctor Who actors:

• John Bryans (Stoker) played Torvin in The Creature from the Pit (opposite Bayldon as Organon)
• for John Bennett (DI Holloway) see the Sleeping Murder blog
• Tom Adams (Dominick/Richard) was Vorshak in Warriors of the Deep
• for Ingrid Pitt (pictured, as Carla) see the Where Eagles Dare blog
• Richard Coe (Talmadge) was the TV Announcer in The Executioners episode of The Chase
• Wolfe Morris (Proprietor) was Padmasambhava in The Abominable Snowmen
• Roy Evans (Hunchback) was Trantis in The Daleks' Master Plan, Bert in The Green Death, and a Miner in The Monster of Peladon
• for Joanna Lumley (Crew girl) see my first blog for The New Avengers

The Ripper and the Whoniverse, Part 3 (Revised)

Analysing Doctor Who: Matrix by Mike Tucker and Robert Perry
(BBC Books, 1998) Continued -

The Doctor now transforms fully into the 'Ripper' in "a sudden swirl of wind and leaves" (page 73), an event forseen in Relative Dementias (Mark Michalowski, 2002). He attacks 'Dorothy' with a glass shard and she flees, now cut and bloodied.

Ace runs into horse-slaughterer Henry Tomkins, who presumes that 'Leather Apron' [i] has attacked her. "They say he's a medical man" he states, which was a common assumption from 1888 onwards - a Doctor perhaps! Tomkins [ii] is the only real-life person connected with the case who appears in Matrix (although the generic Scotland Yard detective who later questions Ace remains anonymous).

Later Ace takes a room in Whitechapel Road, but she finds the area so different to the East End seen in Illegal Alien (also by Tucker and Perry, 1997). When Jed retrieves the TARDIS telepathic circuit he has a vision of the London Blitz, as well as seeing the "Cheetah girl" Ace (see Survival, 1989).

The next day sees Kelly's murder in Miller's Court [5] - the only one committed indoors - so we can assume that the time-travellers arrived on Thursday November 8th 1888. Now posing as Dorothy Gale (the heroine of The Wizard of Oz), Ace finds work in service at Treddle's Wharf, whilst the amnesiac Doctor is sheltered and christened 'Johnny' by his new friend, Joseph Liebermann.

The funeral conducted at Christ Church, Spitalfields (p. 173) must be Kelly's, since she was buried on November 19th [iii]. In attendance at the graveside are the Doctor, Liebermann, and Malacroix, who remarks that "the Jews will be blamed for this". This echoes the real 'graffito' chalked on a wall at Goulston Street on the night of the double event. Recorded thus (and removed on Sir Charles Warren's orders): "The Juwes are the men That Will not be Blamed for nothing" the mis-spelling is believed to be deliberate.

Allegedly scrawled by the murderer, this message was left on a wall above another clue, Eddowes' [4]  bloody apron, and has an apparent double meaning. It served as an anti-semitic reference left near Jewish dwellings, besides containing the Masonic phrase "Juwes".

Malacroix then acquires Nicholls' [1] blood-stained dress, and states that "some people claimed that Martha Tabram had been the first [victim], nearly a month earlier. They were wrong" (p. 204). He seems well informed because many contemporaries assumed that Tabram [iv] along with at least three other non-canonical victims, was indeed killed by the Ripper.

When the Doctor eventually discovers the telepathic circuit, he regains his memory. He recalls his last trial, and even senses his future gunshot injuries and consequent eigth incarnation. The Time Lord then confronts the Ripper in the crypt of Christ Church. The killer is revealed as the Valeyard (see The Trial of a Time Lord, 1986), and his lair is in fact the Doctor's warped TARDIS which now houses the Dark Matrix. They battle on the bell-tower as the corrupted time-ship dies, and the Valeyard falls to his death.

As they prepare to leave London, the Doctor tells Ace that "those particular five women had to die. Simply because that's the way it happened". This reinforces the belief that there were indeed five Ripper victims.

TO BE CONTINUED.

KEY Canonical Murders:

[1] Mary Ann Nicholls - Buck's Row, Friday August 31st 1888

[2] Annie Chapman - Hanbury St. Saturday September 8th

[3] Elizabeth Stride - Berner St. Sunday September 30th

[4] Catherine Eddowes - Mitre Square, also September 30th

[5] Mary Jane Kelly - Miller's Court, Friday November 9th

Notes
[i] Contemporaneous suspect John Pizer was known in the East End as 'Leather Apron' and was arrested by Sergeant William Thicke on September 10th, but was later cleared of all suspicion.
[ii] Tomkins was a witness at the Nicholls inquest, and worked in Winthorp Street at the time of her murder in neighbouring Buck's Row.
[iii] Kelly was actually interred at St. Patrick's RC Cemetary, Leytonstone.
[iv] Tabram was slain at 37 George Yard (now Gunthorpe Street) on Tuesday August 7th.

The Ripper and the Whoniverse, Part 2 (Revised)

Analysing Doctor Who: Matrix, Continued -

When the book's narrative first moves to the 'Autumn of Terror' (page 63), East End local, Jed Barrow has been following "shadows" in the fog for months, and had even heard the "strangled screams" of the second Ripper victim at Hanbury Street [2] (we can actually dismiss the trademark 'pea-soup' fogs because it was never foggy during any of the slayings). Jed also watched the police search of the yard at number 29, and even "found two gold rings". In fact, two brass rings were apparently taken by the killer from Chapman's left hand, but never recovered (two similar cheap rings were discovered amongst suspect Francis Tumblety's belongings after his death in 1903).

Jed later meets Jacques Malacroix, the tyrannical circus-owner, at Mitre Square, as the police remove Eddowes' [4] body. Malacroix wants to find the Ripper to display with his other freaks, and so employs Jed as his "eyes".

There had already been a murder that night, the first of the so-called 'double event' when a prostitute had been "cut from ear to ear". This was the victim's only injury because the killer was supposedly disturbed by Louis Diemschutz, and he needed to sate his bloodlust by seeking another kill. The murder of this third canonical victim [3] has led to further speculation that she wasn't slain by the Ripper at all, but by a copycat killer (or that this single murder was hidden amidst the series).

Nearly six weeks later, Jed witnesses the arrival of the TARDIS at a Thameside wharf, and recalls similar magical scenes at Mr Jago's Palace Theatre (p. 69, see The Talons of Weng-Chiang, 1977). Coming under immediate mental attack, the Doctor explains to Ace that according to the distorted version of history (studied from Barbara Wright's books in 1966), a sixth Ripper murder, one that should never have happened, occurs on the very wharf where the travellers have landed (p. 72).
 Coincidentally, John F Plimmer is convinced that the Ripper was based in docklands (In the Footsteps of the Whitechapel Murders, Book Guild, 1998). Trevor Marriott later named a merchant seaman, the German Carl Feigenbaum, as the killer (2005), and even speculated that the murderer had first struck in 1863, then 1872! In channel Five's Mapping Murder (2002), however, geographical profiler David Carter speculates that Jack's lair was in the Middlesex Street area - the actual location of Ripper 'diarist' James Maybrick's London rooms.

This would-be victim, a young woman wearing a cream dress (presumably the one that Ace changed into at Gabriel Chase in 1883, see Ghost Light, 1989) was never identified, and the subsequent 'Jacksprite' incidents spiralled out of control. Interestingly, the Ripper episode of The Outer Limits (1999) features a victim credited only as a "woman in [a] cream dress". ITV mini-series Jack the Ripper (1988) also includes a sixth (staged) murder attempt, whilst From Hell (2001) reinterprets the fifth canonical killing by presenting the murder of a French prostitute mistaken for Kelly [5].

TO BE CONTINUED

KEY Canonical Murders:

[1] Mary Ann Nicholls - Buck's Row, Friday August 31st 1888

[2] Annie Chapman - Hanbury St. Saturday September 8th

[3] Elizabeth Stride - Berner St. Sunday September 30th

[4] Catherine Eddowes - Mitre Square, also September 30th

[5] Mary Jane Kelly - Miller's Court, Friday November 9th