Fighting the FASCISTS

Agnes O’Casey stars in a fact based thriller about a Jewish hairdresser who infiltrates a neo-Nazi group in 1960s London

- JUDY EWENS, ELAINE REILLY

Ridley Road Sunday, BBC1 HD, 9pm

In the early 1960s, almost 20 years after the Nazis were defeated in World War Two, fascism was on the rise in the UK.

BBC1’s new four-part drama Ridley Road explores this little-known chapter of 20th-century British history through the eyes of Vivien Epstein (newcomer Agnes O’Casey), a young Manchester hairdresser who comes to London in 1962 for love and ends up working undercover for an anti-fascist organisation.

Based on Jo Bloom’s novel and adapted for TV by Him & Her’s Sarah Solemani, the series is set against a background of real events involving the rise of the National Socialist Movement (NSM), a neo-Nazi organisation founded by real-life figure Colin Jordan, a far-right activist who kept a portrait of Adolf Hitler on his wall.

COMFORTABLE

In this week’s opening episode, sheltered Vivien defies her Jewish parents Liza (Samantha Spiro) and David (Will Keen) and goes in search of the man she’s fallen in love with – Jack Morris (Tom Varey), after he abruptly leaves for London.

‘When we first meet Vivien, she’s living a comfortable, middle-class life in Manchester. She’s young and restricted,’ says O’Casey. ‘We see her run away to London and discover herself. She goes on a journey of complete change.’