Jack The Accent Ripper

Jack The Accent Ripper

Last night we watched Part One of the 1988 Euston Films production of 'Jack The Ripper' starring Michael Caine as Inspector Abberline.

We'll get into the nitty-gritty of this show in (hopefully) Episode 26 of 'Round The Archives', but for today's video we thought it would be interesting to talk about the bits you don't see on screen when it comes to Abberline's origins.

Between them, Warren and Lisa know an impressive amount about the events of 1888, but I'm rather ashamed to admit that this time last year I had little idea as to who Inspector Abberline was, and none at all that he came from Blandford, Dorset.

When I were a lad, Blandford was a such a far-away place (just under 15 miles) that there was only one bus a week to there, on a Thursday. I don't remember much about individual trips there, apart from going to the shoe shop and having an iced bun in the tearooms before catching the bus back.
There's no clue that Michael Caine's Abberline is a Dorset, boy apart from a brief allusion to his being considered an 'outsider' by his colleages. I know I'm biased, but I'd have liked this to have been explored a bit more, but there you go.

In a recent edition of the 'Smash The Media' podcast ('The Working Class Struggle Is Real' which can be heard here), hosts Guy Lambert and Danny Simm discuss how the media does not offer equal opportunities to people from working-class backgrounds and I think this is also true for people from the West Country.

'Broadchurch' has seen a few people adopting Dorset tones, but growing up there were very few people on the telly who spoke like most of the people round where I were.

'The Wurzels' made it onto 'Top Of The Pops' from time-to-time (and one of their number, Tommy Banner, actually hails from Scotland). More locally to me were 'The Yetties', but they are even less well-known than their Somerset cousins.

Bill Bailey is, of course, influenced by Scrumpy-And-Western music and there's Phil Harding from 'Time Team'. Apart from Jethro and Professor Colin Pillinger, I'm struggling to think of many more recognisable people who speak proper.

As I've said before a few more Dorset stories in 'Doctor Who' would be very welcome, so long as we don't have to go down the Comedy Yokel route.

Oh ar?

Our video about Inspector Abberline and Dorset accents can be seen here.

(Written by Andrew Trowbridge)

A short PS from Lisa : Having said that I thought that Brian Capron would have been good alongside Michael Caine, having now seen Lewis Collins' performance, I think he's one of the best things about the production.