BBC 1’s ‘Ridley Road’: racism and anti-Semitism since the Sixties

The best thing about Ridley Road (BBC1, Sundays, 9pm) is the cast. There hasn’t been a TV drama with such a strong cast since The Hollow Crown. Rory Kinnear plays the fascist leader, Colin Jordan. Eddie Marsan plays Soly Malinovsky, a passionate crusader against the anti-Semitic Right and Tracy-Ann Oberman plays his wife, Nancy. Samantha Spiro plays Liza Epstein, the mother of the central character, Vivien, and Will Keen plays her husband, David. Allan Corduner plays an East End rabbi and Rita Tushingham plays Vivien’s landlady.

Many have rightly praised the important subject of the series: antisemitism on the far Right in the 1960s. Younger viewers won’t remember the crank Right of the post-war years, their violent hatred for Black and Jewish people alike. The Sixties weren’t just about Twiggy and the Beatles. There was a nasty side to British society, from the anti-Jewish riots just after the war and the Notting Hill Riots in the 1950s to the racism depicted in Ridley Road and in Steve McQueen’s recent BBC Small Axe dramas. These have taught us valuable lessons in the recent history of racism in Britain. Executive producer Nicola Shulman and writer Sarah Solemani have received critical acclaim for adapting Jo Bloom’s novel to the small screen.

But there are problems, too, and these are likely to be overlooked in the praise for the acting and the subject. First, if you compare the first episodes of Ridley Road with Our Friends in the North (1996), it was Peter Flannery and directors Stuart Urban and Pedr James who did a better job of evoking the feel of the early Sixties, the demolition of old terraced streets, the contemporary soundtrack and the fascination of the young characters with the huge social changes going on in America.

Second, Jo Bloom’s novel is basically chick-lit and the series follows suit. It is about the story of a young Jewish woman from Manchester, Vivien Epstein, torn between two attractive young men on the Left, both more attractive and interesting than her feeble Jewish fiancé. There’s something a little troubling about the depiction of the lower middle class Epsteins, desperate for respectability, the mother obsessively cleaning, putting a good marriage before their daughter’s happiness. They can’t compete with Swinging London and seem indifferent to the rise of the Far Right. And yet the mother’s speech about how she wished she had known more about what was happening in Nazi Germany is deeply moving, superbly delivered by Samantha Spiro, suggesting there might yet be more to the Epsteins than these stereotypes suggest.

This emphasis on romance suits the current BBC to a tee. Like the execrable Vigil, BBC1 drama is getting in the habit of using important political issues as window-dressing, when their real heart is in romantic relationships. This mix of politics and romance is clearly seen by the BBC as a winner, especially for that prime 9pm Sunday slot.

In both series, the politics is a problem. Was there far-Right racism and anti-Semitism in 1960s Britain? Yes. How significant was it? Not very. While leader of the British Movement, Colin Jordan stood for Parliament three times: in the 1969 Birmingham Ladywood by-election (282 votes, 3.0%); Birmingham Aston in the 1970 general election (704 votes, 2.5%) and Wolverhampton North East in the February 1974 general election (711 votes, 1.5%). The glimpses of small meetings in nearly empty church halls in Ridley Road confirms this was a tiny faction of the crank Right. The real problem in British society was the widespread racism in the 1960s and ’70s: Enoch Powell, of course, but also the nasty everyday racism of countless social encounters. Black and Asian Britons encountered vile abuse and physical attacks and this was deeply embedded in British society during these years.

This leads us to the present. The far-Right British Movement suits the BBC perfectly. Anti-Semitism, for the BBC, is a problem of small Right-wing organisations. But, of course, today we know that this is small fry compared to what has been going on on the Left, in our universities, in the trade unions and right at the top of the Labour Party. While he was leader of the Labour Party, Jeremy Corbyn associated with Holocaust deniers and anti-Zionist hatemongers. The Labour party could have tackled anti-Semitism more effectively “if the leadership had chosen to do so”, the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) concluded as part of its 130-page investigation. “We found specific examples of harassment, discrimination and political interference in our evidence,” the EHRC said in its foreword, adding: “But equally of concern was a lack of leadership within the Labour party on these issues, which is hard to reconcile with its stated commitment to a zero-tolerance approach to anti-Semitism.”

Some got very touchy-feely about the moment in Keir Starmer’s speech at the Labour conference last week when he said “Welcome home”, to Louise Ellman, who had been driven out of the Labour party by Corbynites. His words received a standing ovation, but this was from largely the same Labour delegates who had given Corbyn standing ovations at Labour’s conference just two years ago. Starmer is keen to close the door on anti-Semitism in the Labour Party, but there is clearly much more work to do. Compared to this, and the power of Powell, Colin Jordan’s small bunch of thugs counted for little. Will we ever see a BBC drama series about anti-Semitism on the Left? I am not holding my breath.

We need more primetime dramas about racism towards Jewish, Asian and Black people in post-war Britain, as it permeated British culture, politics and society; less chick-lit romance, fewer clichés about the Swinging Sixties and a tougher look at racism on the Right and the Left, from the Young Liberals in the 1960s and ’70s to Corbynism and the trade unions today. I hope these dramas will have the same brilliant cast and production values as Ridley Road.

A Message from TheArticle

We are the only publication that’s committed to covering every angle. We have an important contribution to make, one that’s needed now more than ever, and we need your help to continue publishing throughout the pandemic. So please, make a donation.