‘Jack the Ripper – The Legacy’ is a new play written by Anthony Musgrave and Nev Slater, the team that wrote the sell-out version of ‘Dracula’ shown at the East Riding Theatre in 2023.
The storyline is a mixture of fact and fiction, giving the victims of Jack the Ripper a voice and telling us their perspective on events. After all, everyone knows Jack the Ripper – but can you name his victims? Do you know who they were or where they were from? Only that odd breed of person – the Rippologist – can tell you all their names, or where Liz Stride came from, or what Catherine Eddowes had tattooed on her arm.
To the man in the street, their names are largely forgotten; they are casually labelled as ‘those prostitutes that Jack the Ripper killed’. The play emphasises the victims’ personal histories and challenges the stereotypes portraying them as merely prostitutes or alcoholics, reminding us that they were real people, and highlights the harsh social conditions of the East End, the struggles they faced, and society’s exploitation of their memory through tourism and media, whilst also reflecting on the social context and lasting legacy of the murders.
George is fascinated by Jack the Ripper and decides to go to London to see the murder sites. Whilst there, he attends a meeting of Ripperologists, who discuss potential suspects and the proliferation of conspiracy theories. The Ripperologists take him on a tour of the places where the Ripper struck. Disappointed by the fact that hardly anything original remains, George starts to feel ill, and then, inexplicably, finds himself back in August 1888, the very time the Ripper’s murder spree began.
Deciding that the opportunity to discover who Jack was is too great to ignore, George determines to do just that. Befriending a local prostitute, Marie-Jeanette, he finds a room to stay in and embarks on his quest. As he struggles with fading memories – is it possible to remember events that are yet to happen? – we meet Jack’s victims, and they in turn tell us their stories – who they were, the lives they led and how they ended up in Whitechapel to meet their horrific fates.
Along the way, we also meet characters from the investigation, such as Inspector Abberline, Dr Bagster Phillips and Dr. Brown, and the unfortunately named Sergeant Thicke, all of whom allow reference to real historical details such as police procedures, forensic findings and the infamous ‘Dear Boss’ letter that gave Jack his now notorious sobriquet.
However, Time must keep itself constant, and when something that should never have happened occurs, the question of the ‘Butterfly Effect’ makes George realise that changing the past could drastically alter the future and leaves him with a terrible choice to make…
Overall, the play offers a multi-faceted dramatisation of the Jack the Ripper story, blending mystery, historical fact, social critique and speculative fiction to examine the enduring impact of the murders on both society and culture.
