Ridley Road/BBC 1

Every Friday in the 1960s amd 1970s my late mother would shop at Ridley Road market in Dalston.

Even when we moved upmarket from Stoke Newington to St John’s Wood in 1964 this routine continued, involving a long car journey.

So when I heard of a BBC drama based on the Jo Bloom novel I was interested.

I have also had an interest in post-war fascism.

I was however disappointed to see few shots of Ridley Road and found the drama pedestrian.

It had a fine cast of Tracy Oberman, Eddie Marsan, Agnes O’ Casey (granddaughter of Sean), Tamzin Outhwaite, Rita Tushingham and Rory Kinnear but it failed to engage me.

It was set in 1962 and Vivien – a young Jewish hairdresser from Manchester – goes to Soho to pursue her inamorata Joe Morris, an undercover agent monitoring fascist leader Colin Jordan (Rory Kinnear).

Reluctantly she gets drawn in by her activist uncle Soly (Eddie Marsan) to the anti-fascist cause of Group 62.

I often spoke to my father about the Blackshirts.

He grew up in the true East End and recalled the big drum that heralded a Blackshirt march.

At Jackson Corner, the gateway to the East End, the biggest Fascist march was repelled.

Devoid of leadership and political representation in parliament, after that they did not even control the streets.

Although Eddie Marsan refers to this, I felt Ridley Road paid more lip service to BBC diversity than historical reality.

There was a black member of the anti-fascist group who fancied Vivien.

Then – even now – anti-fascism was not fought along a racially inclusive front.

The director Lisa Mulcahy and screen writer Sarah Solemani simply did not inject enough momentum and the 1960s crowd and street scenes were unconvincing.

I will give it a second go as it’s a four-parter but, as the American wit Mort Sahl exclaimed during the 4 hour film Exodus:

“Let my people go.”