Ridley Road

• 71
  Metascore
• 2021-2021
• 1 season
• PBS Masterpiece
• Drama, Suspense

Vivien Epstein (Agnes O'Casey) is the daughter in a traditional suburban 1960s Manchester Jewish family, comprising father David (Will Keen), mother Liza (Samantha Spiro) and a relative Roza (Julia Krynke) whom the family is sheltering. The father arranges a marriage (with neither Vivien's desire nor her consent) with the father of a local Jewish boy. Vivien already has a beau, Jack (Tom Varey), who leaves for London, desolate. Vivien has no intention of becoming a bride. She leaves to find some Jewish relatives in London, rents a room with non-Jewish East End resident Nettie Jones (Rita Tushingham), and gets a job as a hairdresser in Soho. Far-right fascism is on the rise. One of her East End relatives, Soly Malinovsky (Eddie Marsan), is a London black cab driver who heads a Jewish anti-fascist group. He asks Vivien to get involved ("anti-fascists do, they don't just say"). She agrees to infiltrate the organization of Colin Jordan (Rory Kinnear, the neo-Nazi leader of the East End thugs. Jordan's organization (where Jack is already undercover) is based in the country mansion of a far-right English aristocrat. Vivien affects a relationship with Jordan and his young son, and she allows Jordan to seduce her. However, both Vivien and Jack have their cover blown and are both in danger of being killed, but they each separately manage hair-raising escapes, Vivien taking a suitcase of incriminating documents that prove that Jordan has set up an illegal training camp for a neo-Nazi militia (The police agree to investigate and prosecute Jordan). Vivien's parents, who were devastated at her abandonment of the family home and the arranged betrothal, are now very proud of her anti-fascist work. After a tearful family reunion, Vivien flies off to Tel Aviv with Jack.