Ridley Road- surely the wrong time.

I'm just wondering have we inadvertently given away the twist/ending of this drama? Oops!

trisher Jewish people eat fish, the famous dish of gelfite fish is a Jewish dish. Delicious I believe. Jewish people do not eat shellfish though.
I’m also finding it strange that Netty Jones was actually Jewish in the book. In the drama she has a crucifix on the wall. I said upthread that books are often changed when dramatised, but this change seems extremely strange because it totally alters the story, and usually changes still follow the main thread of the story. Also the hairdresser was apparently Jewish in the book, but not in the drama. Very, very strange. Why are the BBC doing this. Is it anti Semitic? I don’t know.

She served Vivien what looked like a kipper or a bloater for her tea. I know shellfish are against the dietary laws but what about fish?

I've watched it all so really shouldn't comment but she is a good person

She's Vivien's landlady. You did see a close up of a bible and her gloves. She attends meetings where speeches supporting Nazi views are made. Maybe they are proposing to reveal her true identity at the end.

Can you tell me trisher? What is Netty's role in the drama? In the book she is Netty Levy and the widow of an anti-fascist activist. When Vivien first goes to her house we see a crucifix and a picture of Jesus on the wall. Is she a devout Christian or using that as a front?

Yes, trisher. And in the late 50s my Grandparents stopped being Speilbergs. Don't you get it?

There is a novel about this but it was also based on the 62 Group. Who were real people with a voice

You don't like the fact that this programme is being shown which is a worry for you and you think that people today are anti semite?

Very concerning,

Netty Levy and Barb Wiseman in the book become Netty Jones and Barbara Watson i this TV series Zoejory. Read the thread.

The problem here is of Sarah Solemani's making. She has taken the Jewish characters from Bloom's novel, people named Levy, Wiseman (or Weissman) and Perlman and changed their characters entirely, as I described upthread, to create a very different story from the novel.

Isn't this based on a true story, Trisher? Excuse my ignorance, but I've yet to watch it. I'd have thought it was of its time.

Why on earth would you think that Jewish names would be less acceptable to viewers of today? That's just baffling. My name hasn't caused me any issues.

Zoejory

trisher

Anniebach

Why would the BBC want to dilute the Jewish element in a drama about anti semitism?

We can only speculate about that, but changing Jewish names to more English ones is surely diluting the Jewish element isn't it?

A great many Jews changed their names to more English ones for reasons I would have thought obvious.

My grandparents had neighbours whose surname almost totally changed upon arrival here.

Does that mean Zoejory that you think the BBC has done it for the same reasons? That if the characters had had Jewish names they would be less acceptable to the viewers?

I really enjoyed this programme, the date and time it was aired does not bother me.
Why not just enjoy it, maybe think about what these people went through. It seems to me people over annalise everything today.
I am really looking forward to the next episode.

trisher

Anniebach

Why would the BBC want to dilute the Jewish element in a drama about anti semitism?

We can only speculate about that, but changing Jewish names to more English ones is surely diluting the Jewish element isn't it?

A great many Jews changed their names to more English ones for reasons I would have thought obvious.

My grandparents had neighbours whose surname almost totally changed upon arrival here.

The TV series is very different to Jo Bloom's book which is pretty typical of publisher Orion’s "regional romantic writers" genre. The BBC drama bears a passing resemblance to the book only insofaras Sarah Solemani has lifted the story of the 62 anti-fascist resistance group then written an entirely new plot and introduced new or markedly changed characters.

In the book, Mancunian Vivien Epstein is a hairdresser whose widowed history teacher father has died leaving her alone. Her mother died when Vivien was a young child. She comes to London in search of Jack (Fox) Morris who had some connection to her father and with whom she had a brief flirtation. They finally get around to some pretty coy and dull sex about 3/4 of the way through the book! So tepid I'm not even sure it happened!

Jack’s character has been completely changed. He was never in the thick of the violence and did his best to stay on the fringes when this was happening. He is a quiet and rather awkward man who, ordinarily, lives with his middle-class parents in Golders Green. He is working as a journalist for The Times and goes undercover for a story. The NSM has acquired rudimentary bombmaking materials and are planning attacks on synagogues and other targets. It is Jack’s job to discover where.

Stevie Perlman is a young Jewish lad who dreams of being a rock and roll drummer. He has lost his job at Oxford Street’s HMV and finds work in Barb Wiseman’s (not Watson) fiancé Alan’s greengrocer shop in Stamford Hill. Steve is infatuted with Vivien (and his actions potentially jeopardise Jack’s cover). He is certainly not a black law student or Barb’s son. Barb is only 25 in the book and excited about her upcoming marriage to Alan.

Vivien does not conceal her Jewishness, bleach her hair or change her name in order to meet and become involved with Colin Jordan. Jordan is only a shadowy, sinister presence in the book without dialogue.

Soly Malinovsky is barely mentioned, only once as Sol (no surname) in a meeting with the Klein family. Father Sidney Klein and sons Barry and Jeremy are the central family organising the resistance. Sid is an old friend of Vivien’s father from when the latter lived in London and Barry is a journalist colleague of Jack.

Not much resemblance there at all.

You could be right Early I would have liked to see a few more references to the black racism as well.
It sounds as if the TV series is better than the book anyway.

And now it's there twice!

The old book cover didn't post. Trying again:

Hi trisher. Some more thoughts …

The book now has a new cover to tie it to the TV series. Here’s the old one. Anyone watching then reading the book is in for a surprise and disappointment. Don’t expect much more than a light read which focuses more on hair styling, clothes and girly gossip than it does on black and Jewish persecution. Bloom is much more interested in portraying woman as a-political airheads and clumsily shoehorning in references to 1960s culture at every opportunity. Men fighting in the streets and Vivien goes out to buy a Jubbly!

Going back to your original post. In a way it is entirely appropriate that this be shown during Black History Month so that people might look at what was was really happening in 1962, what the NSM were saying and doing and how they promulgated hatred and violence against black and Jewish people.

I grew up in North London (only a few miles from Stamford Hill and Dalston) but was only seven in 1962 so these events passed me by. I wonder if there are any women here who remember these events and know anything about women’s active involvement in them? Not street-fighting (but maybe they did) but behind the scenes.

Thanks Early I was wonderng if it was worth reading. I think I'll give it a miss. I will watch the rest of the series.

Just popping in to say I have reached the end of what may be the worst book I have read in a very long time. The only relationship between the book and the drama is the character Vivien Epstein. Her entire backstory has been changed as have almost all the characters and the entire plot. Beware if you decide to buy the book.

I watched it all today, I thought it was really good (though upsetting obviously)

Early

No, LincsLass. That's not what I meant. In the novel Ridley Road Vivien Epstein's landlady and employer are Netty Levy and Barb Wiseman and are Jewish. trisher and I are questioning why the names have been changed for the dramatisation.

Beg your pardon, haven’t read the book, do wonder why then.

On Sunday Oct. 4, 1936, Mosley led his Blackshirt supporters on a march through the East End, following months of BUF meetings and leafleting in the area designed to intimidate Jewish people and break up the East End’s community solidarity. Despite a petition signed by 100,000 people, the British government permitted the march to go ahead and designated 7,000 members of the police force to accompany it. The counter-protest from the Cable Street community involved members from the Jewish and Irish communities, local workers and local Labor and Communist parties, who succeeded in disbanding the BUF march. As TIME reported in the magazine’s Oct. 12 issue 1936, in an article called “Mosley Shall Not Pass!”:

Just some info about this.

The actress Tracey Ann Oberman, who is Jewish and one of the actors in the programme ,said on a recent interview that it is 85 years since the Battle of Cable Street happened which was basically the fascist black shirts v the Jewish community in the East End of London (simply put) so may be why it is being shown at this time.

Having read all the comments, I'm going to reserve final judgement until I've managed to fight my way to the end of this annoyingly saccharine book and watched the dramatisation. I'm hoping it will explain why Bloom writes Vivien as such a silly, empty-headed, young woman for the first half of the story. Surrounded by anti-fascist activists all she can think about is hairdressing and romance.