Concept and creative process
‘Jack the Ripper’ was a six part dramatised investigation presented by two famous TV Detective Chief Superintendents Barlow and Watt from the series ‘Z Cars’, ‘Softly Softly’ and ‘Barlow at Large’, played by the actors Stratford Johns and Frank Windsor. Part discussion, part drama documentary, the series re-examined the suspects, the theories and the evidence but came to no new conclusion about the identity of the man who had terrorised London’s East End in the 19th century. The title concept took the form of a rather long and slightly dog-eared Victorian theatre playbill in a mixture of black and red type fonts and decorations on a textured buff coloured paper. The artwork was printed and distressed before being filmed on a rostrum with the camera zooming in from a wide view of the whole playbill to a panning shot in close-up of the credits. A close-up whip-pan back to the top of the playbill provided an attractive torn edge foreground for the episode title in white on the black background.