Killing Jack-a brilliant play that seeks to overhaul a familiar narrative that has sought to legitimise violent misogyny.

Killing Jack at the Queen’s Theatre reaches beyond five stars-It exposes the widespread denial and indifference to violence against women for what it. It is a truly fantastic performance *****

Havering campaigner and theatre reviewer Ruth Kettle-Frisby today reviews the latest Queen’s Theatre play-Killing Jack.

Same sh*t, different century”; Killing Jack seeks to overhaul a familiar narrative that has sought to legitimise violent misogyny. It turns this narrative on its head with warmth, wit, and no holds barred…but it’s also a play about redemption and hope.

The stage is dark and derelict, starkly divided with cold criss-crossing scaffolding. The effect lends itself to the eerie atmosphere while providing physical platforms for the actors, creating the impression of shifting dimension. 

In 1888. five women were brutally murdered in Whitechapel; just a few stops from Romford on the Elizabeth Line today! They each haunt the stage, encased in individual steel frames that are periodically electrified with crackling neon light creating a mysterious, but powerfully centring effect.

These women are brought to life through song, humour, fury and tenderness. They help to deliver an important message – drawing on the politics of structural privilege and darkestpoverty – about the enduring harm caused by “keeping the wrong person alive”. 

Sadie Hasler’s brilliant writing is playfully politically-charged, and creates a perfect balance of entertainment and a compelling challenge to continuing abuses of power in its different forms. She exposes the widespread denial and indifference to violence against women for what it is,including the shameless commoditisation of women’s death and oppression. She draws attention to the gross injustice that’s ensued from false framings about the ‘moral characters’ of women who are abused and killed, and to the absurdity of the prevailing victim-blaming narrative: that women’s behaviour somehow causes them to be violated and murdered. 

The play courageously takes on this Leviathan of a social justice concern, and calls for radical change. It engages in some substantial heavy lifting to speak up for womenthroughout history who are punished, shamed and made dispensable for being poor, but it does so with the lightest of touches. It forges a charmingly irreverent trajectory of unshakeably hope, fortified through friendship, and developed with gentle revelations of truth…all with tremendous sparks of life-affirming humour.

All the actors were absolutely first-rate, bringing light and shade to the story with dry, often dead-pan wit which was expertly delivered. They seamlessly depicted ghosts plagued by indecision getting their spirits together for the greater good; realising their stunted dreams in the hearts of women of the future. These women take the ‘Ripperologist’ – a kind of Scrooge of All Hallows Eve – on a journey that humbles him out of the picture. 

Killing Jack is the play we need this Halloween: the theatrical landmark that gives Polly, Annie, Liz, Kate, and Mary Janespace to rise up and to shine in the light of the fraction of dignity that they always deserved.  

Photo credit: Mark Sepple.

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