Ridley Road- surely the wrong time.

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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

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,

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?

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.

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

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?

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.

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

I think the drama was (rather heavy-handedly) making the point that 'ordinary people' need to speak out against fascism, not just those who are being targeted.

There were several set-piece speeches saying just that - 'it's not enough to be not a fascist, you need to act' etc.

The landlady represents people who turn a blind eye to things that don't directly affect them, and don't 'join the dots'. She is scared at the thought of change (eg the tower blocks that are replacing the terraces where she has lived all her life), is alone as her sons were killed in the war, and susceptible to people with a simple message that gives here someone to blame. She hasn't made the connection between the message of the councillor bloke and the reason that her sons died.

The hairdresser is clearly not racist - her son is mixed race - and she has seen racism first-hand as a result. She is busy getting on with making a living, but when called to action she is happy to get involved (although, by that time in the drama I was losing interest, as the escape scenes were so silly).

If they had been cast as Jewish, it would have been more difficult to make the point that everyone needs to be alert to fascism (not just jews and other victims), and that we all need to be prepared to fight against it. It is dramatic licence, and I don't see any anti-semitism there.

Thank you Doodledog for that explanation, it puts things into a bit more perspective.

Look what I found in the GN archives from 2015:

www.gransnet.com/forums/books_book_club/1218599-September-book-club-Ridley-Road

First episode watched - nothing like the book but plodding on as it features two favourite actors Rory Kinnear and Eddie Marsan. Agnes O'Casey is impressive as Vivien.

Very loosely based on real events. It is based on a romantic novel written by someone who was not present at these events. I WAS.......and very active in the Dalson area which included Ridley Road during those years. Never part of the 62 group, although always an active ant-fascist.

I was at the Colin Jordan Trafalgar Square rally which was extremely crowded with all types of anti-fascists. Jorden was trying to revive anti-jewish reactions. But the real fascist dangers of that period in the early 1960's was the Mosley movement. And, this concentrated far more on being anti-immigrant (ie anti=black), than anti-semetic. So, Yes correctly in Black History month.

They advertised (widely) a meeting in Tottenham, at which Oswald Mosley would speak - and the 62 group and other anti-fascist groups all saw it as the new Cable Street, and rallied people to go there to prevent it from all parts of the UK.

The night before this meeting was due, my local Young Socialist group had a phone call from one of our members (who unknown to us had infiltrated the local Moseleyite branch), informing us that Moseley was actually intending to speak at Ridley Road - NOT Tottenham. We informed the 62 group who did not believe us. So five of us went at 6.00 am with a soapbox to filibust in Ridley Road, Informed local constabulary - who were also convinced all the trouble would be at Tottenham, not Dalston. We kept that 'meeting' going, just reading from Sunday papers until midday, when a red sports car with Max Mosely and three others drove past us - showing total fury that we were there and thus, preventing their plans.

Oswald M arrived = could not use Ridley Rd, (because we were there - and law those days was any street meeting with at least five people attending was lawful), advised by local police to use somewhere else in Dalston - which did not fit in with their carefully laid plans to hold that meeting in the iconic Ridley Road Market area. A few hundred of his fascist supporters decided to take our pitch by force -fortunately we had managed, finally to get a message to the 62 group and other anti-fascists up in Tottenham and they just about arrived in time to prevent me and my comrades from being attacked by the fascists. Then the resultant melee lasted for some time and became know as the Battle of Ridley Road.
Such a pity that the writers of the TV series or the book, never bothered actually to talk to those of us who really were there in that area during that time.

That's so interesting, Franbern and a shame there have been so many changes in the adaptation.

Thank you, Early. I remember taking part in the Q&A with Jo Bloom but couldn't remember what I'd written because the book is so unrecognisable I think I may have to read it again.

What a great post Fanbern, thank you.

That's fascinating, Franbern.

Have you thought about writing a book of your own, or at least an article from the point of view of someone who was there, so that the truth about what happened doesn't get lost, or believed to be what happened in the drama?

Thanks for that fascinating account Franbern. Besides being factual it sounds actually more interesting and exciting than this fictional drama. Thank goodness for people like you.

Adding my thanks too, Franbern.

This a light-weight romantic novel adapted by a comedy-actor-writer into a drama with clichéd characters and dialogue and clumsy unbelievable plotting that bears next to no resemblance to the book.

The upside is that it draws renewed attention to these important events in the history of the persection of Jewish (and black) people in 1960s London. I hope it encourages people to read about and research the real events rather than waste money on the novel.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarah_Solemani

www.theguardian.com/film/2016/sep/24/sarah-solemani-had-to-hide-pregnancy-worked-until-due

www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2021/oct/02/ridley-road-how-britains-heinous-nazi-horrors-inspired-my-tv-thriller

Thank you too trisher for starting his discusson which has, perhaps, taken off in a direction that you hadn’t anticipated and which I am certainly learning from.

Just to add, that our meeting room in the Hackney Labour Party Rooms (just around the corner to Ridley Road), was a tall, narrow terraced property. On the ground floor, at the back was a kitchen.
A couple of our members were wandering back to their homes late one night, walked past and saw the front door was ajar. So they invesitgated. The local fascists, had broken in - piled a number of wooden kitchen chairs on top of the gas rings, piled up to the ceilng, and lit all the gas jets under the chairs. Also graffited the walls - so we knew exactly who ahd done it.
As I say, terraced property, three stories high. Houses each side with multi-occupied, and if this fire had taken hold would probably have caused many injuries and deaths - but only that of immigrant families - so I suppose the fascists felt this would have been an excellent outcome.
Fortunately, the lads managed to pull down the chairs, turn of the gas rings, etc before anything had taken hold.
No, never thought of writing it myself. But may give it a try.

Frabern, we are all becoming a part of history but yours is part of the countries history. You should write it all down, if only for your family.

I wasn't even in England in the early 1960s; so I knew nothing about these events. That makes it all the more wonderful to read your first-hand account. Thank you.