In the World of.....Jack the Ripper

[Monty]

By that I mean trawling this site for information. Which is no bad thing.

[George Hutchinson]

Far from the first time a hatchet was mentioned. Don Rumbelow has said this on more than one TV documentary over the years.

PHILIP

[Rob Clack]

The first mention of a hatchet used on Mary Kelly, was made as far as I know in 'The Globe' 16 February 1891.

Rob

[Bailey]

Nobody has any idea of the basis for it then?

B.

[George Hutchinson]

Yep, Damon. The big axe in the hand of the Baphomet on the table.

PHILIP

[Bailey]

Ah, of course. It all makes sense now :P

Bailey (note - not Damon - we don't love the D word Really should fix that sig...)

[Dan Norder]

Modern belief in the hatchet theory basically stems from Nick Warren's claims that only an axe or something like that could have broken Mary Kelly's femur in the way he thinks he sees in the close up crime scene photo. I will be as polite as I can and just say that the theory is not generally accepted to have any merit.

The worst parts about the documentary were all the totally messed up and long-disproved claims about the Lusk letter and kidney (they couldn't have known about the new information Kelly and I turned up, but they should have at least been current on what had already been well discussed over the past five years). The Miller's Court scene was also inaccurate in some rather glaring ways.

The best parts were Philip, Richard and Don giving very informed and sane responses to the questions and the slick production values.

[sdreid]

I always thought machete or meat chopper.

[Roy Corduroy]

Please correct me if I am mistaken. You are not discussing the thread subject, the History Channel TV show In the World of Jack the Ripper broadcast on American television three nights ago. You are discussing a totally different one. Right?

Bapholed,

Roy

[Dan Norder]

Hey Roy,

Sorry, we're talking about two different ones.

Most of the comments are about the one that debuted on the History Channel on Friday. The timing on that was awesome, as some of the hotel staff at the conference heard about it and rushed home to watch it and then treated Philip like royalty the rest of the weekend. Well, actually, the hotel staff treated us all quite well anyway, but that was certainly fun.

The hatchet thing was in a previous documentary Lindsay Siviter participated in, Jack the Ripper Unmasked (which apparently is also the announced title for Bill Beadle's upcoming new book... as if things weren't confusing enough s it is).

[Divakind]

"In The World Of...." is going to run again at 11:00 PM E.S.T. Tuesday night (10/14/08).

I'm looking forward to seeing it! Didn't know about it until I came home from my show last Friday and my mother says "oh by the way, there was something about Jack the Ripper on the History channel tonight".

You'd think after almost two months of being Mary Kelly I'd be sick of anything JTR, wouldn't you?

[Roy Corduroy]

Mel, you're hooked. We enjoyed the story of your performance.

That's tonite 10 Central, 11 Eastern, the History Channel. A 1 hour show. Again, I recommend it. It's the best I've seen.

Roy

PS: the show with the hatchet is Custer's Last Stand

[Divakind]

Saw it.

Really enjoyed it.

And wished it had premiered seven weeks earlier! I kept thinking "next time we tackle this show, we need to make our stage picture a lot more gritty and a lot less pretty!"

I think my mother's getting hooked, too. Just from questions she asked during the course of the show. Like this exchange:

"You still have to die, don't you?" (re: MJK's murder)

"Yep. Coming up after the break!"

Seriously, I think the program was very well done and serves as a good overview of events.

[BillyE]

Loved the show, but didn't it make it a habit of cutting off Philip in mid-sentence? The computer recreations were dark, and difficult to see detail, which I was wondering was why they made it so dark. And not sure why they went to the pump station. Was that to show the lavish amout of money they'd pour into a simple, albeit nessisary, operation rather than help the people of the East End? Finally, it did look like they had the second door at 29 Hanbury St. I know Philip corrected them on it, but was it too late to change it, or did they just lightly glaze over the door to make it look like a wall? Very small complaints for a quite well done documentary.

[Veritas]

Did anyone else watch the JtR documentary on the History Channel tonight? Our own Philip Hutchinson was in it. He was only sparingly used, and the doc would have been better off with more of him giving the tour, although it is always good to see Donald Rumbelow. Anyway, if anyone else saw this give us your opinion. Let us know what you thought.

Yes I saw it last night. One of the best JtR doucmentaries ever. Good to see Philip as well.