From the moment the name was coined by the press, the Yorkshire Ripper became more myth than man. He spawned hoaxes, generated hysterical headlines and inspired countless books, documentaries and fictional depictions in the years after his eventual arrest. As one survivor predicts in New Diorama’s lastest show, the latest in this long line of retellings: “it won’t stop.”
The Incident Room refocuses the narrative, turning away from the killer and examining his would-be captors. Olivia Hirst and David Byrne’s play, devised with the company, follows the much-criticised investigation by West Yorkshire police. Set in the titular room, the nerve-centre of the hunt for an elusive murderer, the play follows the long and frustrating search for clues that are far from forthcoming.
In many ways, The Incident Room is an old-fashioned crime thriller, and on those terms it’s beautifully crafted. The narrative drives forward pacily, gaining urgency as each new murder is discovered. We enter the lives of the coppers desperately trying to solve the mystery, obsessing over minor leads. Looming above them, dominating Patrick Connellan’s impressive set, is a huge wall of filing cabinets – a precarious physical reminder of the weight of paperwork these detectives have to sort through.
But the play struggles to have it both ways. On the one hand, it criticises the sensationalist narratives spun by journalists and fights against the tendency for crime stories to reduce women to victims. The central focus on Sergeant Megan Winterburn (Charlotte Melia) highlights the role of female officers in the force – as well as the prejudice they face – at a time when women were a rarity in the police. She in turn resists the impulse to see women as either victims to be pitied or potential victims to be protected.
At the same time, though, The Incident Room can’t help being part of the problem it diagnoses. For all that it unpicks and critiques the titillating narratives peddled by the media, it still benefits from the same morbid fascination with violent crime. The emphasis may have shifted, but the myth continues to be perpetuated.
At the Pleasance Courtyard, Edinburgh, until 26 August.
