An in-depth interview with the creative team behind the 'City of Vice' reveals why they felt this story had to be told.
Also, read our interview with starring actors, Ian McDiarmid and Iain Glen
Also, read our interview with starring actors, Ian McDiarmid and Iain Glen
How did 'City of Vice' come about?
Rob Pursey, series producer (RP): Justin Hardy and I made 'A Harlot's Progress' together for Channel 4, who wanted us to find another drama that would allow us to explore the mid eighteenth century in more detail. So we looked at the beginnings of the police force, which led us to Henry Fielding. I proposed that we used the cop show genre as a vehicle for telling historically researched stories of real life in Georgian London, with Henry and his brother as the 'first cops' – which is what they were.
Justin Hardy, series producer (JH): As we began to research the project, we saw that this could be quite different from other period drama on television. It gave us a chance to depict how ordinary people lived – the people we might have been – not just the very small minority who were the aristocracy. We tend to think that life is getting more dangerous and that crime is getting worse, but 'City of Vice' shows just how hazardous life actually was in eighteenth century London – and believe me, we are certainly showing it in all its grimy, sleazy and perilous glory.
Where did you source material for the 'City of Vice' storylines? And are the cases in the series real ones or fictitious?
Hallie Rubenhold, historial consultant (HR): 'City of Vice' is quite unique in that we really did strive to maintain a very high degree of historical accuracy throughout. Many of the series' characters are based on real people and those that aren't are based on 'archetypes' of the era. The attitudes and behaviours depicted are also reflective of the era. We were very careful in trying to keep the twenty first century out of our stories. The majority of the stories are roughly based on actual cases taken from The Old Bailey Sessions Papers and the Newgate Calendar, two of the richest sources of information about crime during this era. Episode one, which deals with the notorious Covent Garden pimp, Jack Harris, was taken from information I unearthed in the course of researching my book, 'The Covent Garden Ladies.' His 'Harris's List of Covent Garden Ladies' is an amazing record of the lives of London's prostitutes. The information which featured in his private ledger of names was eventually published in 1757 and reprinted annually until 1795. Today there are a number of copies of it available in the British Library.
Clive Bradley, writer (CB): Having Hallie on hand was a real bonus as she is very well versed in the primary sources such as Harris's List of prostitutes and trial documents from the time. She was able to talk to us about authenticity and make suggestions so, whilst the actual details of the case are fiction, they all have a genuine historical inspiration. For instance, it was Hallie who told us about the Temples of Venus brothel which features in episode five. There really was a place called the Temples of Venus, it really was in Pall Mall, it really was run by Mrs Jane Fawkland, and it really did have three temples – one for experienced pros, one for virgins, and one for younger girls. But the specific events in the episode – Henry Fielding wanting to get to the bottom of what was going on there – that was invention. The idea was to tell fictional stories but in a world, a context, which is thoroughly researched and accurate.
How dangerous was Georgian London for members of the public?
HR: We tend to think of twenty first century London as being an especially dangerous place filled with gangs, guns, muggings, robberies and knife crime. But eighteenth century London was much more dangerous and no one was completely safe from crime. Being rich meant that you were less likely to be attacked on the street because the very wealthy rarely went anywhere without their servants who often acted as the first line of defence against crimes of violence. However, this did not make them immune from burglary and thefts from their homes, often perpetrated by the very same servants who they relied upon to protect them. In Georgian England money protected you from life's unpleasantness. Needless to say, the poorer a person was, the more likely they were to be a victim of crime, which is exactly the same situation that we face today. But in the eighteenth century a far greater proportion of the population were poor (in the 1750s, the aristocracy – who made the laws and whose rights the justice system was designed to protect – comprised only 0.000104 per cent of a total British population of 10.5 million). The very poor parts of London – the parish of St Giles, and areas in the city such as Saffron Hill and parts of Southwark – were virtually lawless. But criminal acts could erupt anywhere at any time – Covent Garden with its numerous drinking establishments was the site of many murders throughout the era and the ill-lit streets were ideal hiding places for pickpockets and gangs of robbers.
Georgian London was evidently a very dangerous place. Were you tempted to tone down the scenes of sex and violence?
RP: Not really. London in 1753 was just as sexually rapacious and far more violent than our own time and we wanted to get that across. It was also important to show what motivated Henry and John Fielding to create the Police Force: London was overcrowded, rife with street gangs and in danger of falling into anarchy. And there were a lot of innocent victims of the appalling vice trade and there was rampant gin addiction – there were a lot of people who needed help. In a way, John and Henry were just like people who join the police today, they wanted to impose some kind of order, and they wanted to save the innocent from abuse. We wanted to create a historical piece that had nothing to do with the decorum and seemliness of most other TV period dramas, which are usually gentle re-adaptations of familiar and much-loved novels.
Was it difficult to recreate Georgian London as a set? And the use of CGI was also important in setting the scene wasn't it?
JH: We were lucky to be able to recruit a lot of the creative team who had worked on 'A Harlot's Progress'. As with that drama, all of 'City of Vice' was filmed on one location – a stately home with lots of rooms that could be dressed and re-dressed to provide us with all our interiors. We knew from the start that we could not afford to do many expensive exterior shots, so we developed a CGI graphic based on a 1753 map of London – and this is what we use (instead of exterior scenes) to 'transport' the viewer from interior to interior. The map's a very handy device because it allows us to show exactly which parts of London our stories took place in. It's a great vehicle for getting across specific historical facts too. It's fascinating, for example, to discover that the Seven Dials area of Covent Garden – now a rather expensive and trendy part of London's theatreland – was once a shanty town that the Bow Street Runners considered too dangerous to visit.
What drew you to Henry Fielding as a lead character for a drama series?
CB: Fielding was one of a new generation of social reformers – this was the age in which the Foundling Hospital was established by William Hogarth, who was a close friend of Fielding's. The Bow Street Runners were, in a sense, a project in a similar vein – an attempt to bring order, and peace, to London's troubled streets. It was a very idealistic project: the Fielding brothers thought they could eliminate crime in a few years and the whole idea of creating a police force was extremely radical at the time. He wasn't a liberal in the modern sense, and although he was a radical up to a point, he was no revolutionary – part of his aim in founding the police was to protect property, most of which belonged to the upper classes. Of course, by the time he became Magistrate of Westminster and Middlesex, Henry Fielding was already a very successful playwright and novelist who I understand had been a bit of a rake when he was younger. He's portrayed in 'City of Vice' as a man who liked his port, and who rather scandalously married his housekeeper when he got her pregnant. He was undoubtedly a fascinating character – at once totally of his time, yet also ahead of it.
Rob Pursey, series producer (RP): Justin Hardy and I made 'A Harlot's Progress' together for Channel 4, who wanted us to find another drama that would allow us to explore the mid eighteenth century in more detail. So we looked at the beginnings of the police force, which led us to Henry Fielding. I proposed that we used the cop show genre as a vehicle for telling historically researched stories of real life in Georgian London, with Henry and his brother as the 'first cops' – which is what they were.
Justin Hardy, series producer (JH): As we began to research the project, we saw that this could be quite different from other period drama on television. It gave us a chance to depict how ordinary people lived – the people we might have been – not just the very small minority who were the aristocracy. We tend to think that life is getting more dangerous and that crime is getting worse, but 'City of Vice' shows just how hazardous life actually was in eighteenth century London – and believe me, we are certainly showing it in all its grimy, sleazy and perilous glory.
Where did you source material for the 'City of Vice' storylines? And are the cases in the series real ones or fictitious?
Hallie Rubenhold, historial consultant (HR): 'City of Vice' is quite unique in that we really did strive to maintain a very high degree of historical accuracy throughout. Many of the series' characters are based on real people and those that aren't are based on 'archetypes' of the era. The attitudes and behaviours depicted are also reflective of the era. We were very careful in trying to keep the twenty first century out of our stories. The majority of the stories are roughly based on actual cases taken from The Old Bailey Sessions Papers and the Newgate Calendar, two of the richest sources of information about crime during this era. Episode one, which deals with the notorious Covent Garden pimp, Jack Harris, was taken from information I unearthed in the course of researching my book, 'The Covent Garden Ladies.' His 'Harris's List of Covent Garden Ladies' is an amazing record of the lives of London's prostitutes. The information which featured in his private ledger of names was eventually published in 1757 and reprinted annually until 1795. Today there are a number of copies of it available in the British Library.
Clive Bradley, writer (CB): Having Hallie on hand was a real bonus as she is very well versed in the primary sources such as Harris's List of prostitutes and trial documents from the time. She was able to talk to us about authenticity and make suggestions so, whilst the actual details of the case are fiction, they all have a genuine historical inspiration. For instance, it was Hallie who told us about the Temples of Venus brothel which features in episode five. There really was a place called the Temples of Venus, it really was in Pall Mall, it really was run by Mrs Jane Fawkland, and it really did have three temples – one for experienced pros, one for virgins, and one for younger girls. But the specific events in the episode – Henry Fielding wanting to get to the bottom of what was going on there – that was invention. The idea was to tell fictional stories but in a world, a context, which is thoroughly researched and accurate.
How dangerous was Georgian London for members of the public?
HR: We tend to think of twenty first century London as being an especially dangerous place filled with gangs, guns, muggings, robberies and knife crime. But eighteenth century London was much more dangerous and no one was completely safe from crime. Being rich meant that you were less likely to be attacked on the street because the very wealthy rarely went anywhere without their servants who often acted as the first line of defence against crimes of violence. However, this did not make them immune from burglary and thefts from their homes, often perpetrated by the very same servants who they relied upon to protect them. In Georgian England money protected you from life's unpleasantness. Needless to say, the poorer a person was, the more likely they were to be a victim of crime, which is exactly the same situation that we face today. But in the eighteenth century a far greater proportion of the population were poor (in the 1750s, the aristocracy – who made the laws and whose rights the justice system was designed to protect – comprised only 0.000104 per cent of a total British population of 10.5 million). The very poor parts of London – the parish of St Giles, and areas in the city such as Saffron Hill and parts of Southwark – were virtually lawless. But criminal acts could erupt anywhere at any time – Covent Garden with its numerous drinking establishments was the site of many murders throughout the era and the ill-lit streets were ideal hiding places for pickpockets and gangs of robbers.
Georgian London was evidently a very dangerous place. Were you tempted to tone down the scenes of sex and violence?
RP: Not really. London in 1753 was just as sexually rapacious and far more violent than our own time and we wanted to get that across. It was also important to show what motivated Henry and John Fielding to create the Police Force: London was overcrowded, rife with street gangs and in danger of falling into anarchy. And there were a lot of innocent victims of the appalling vice trade and there was rampant gin addiction – there were a lot of people who needed help. In a way, John and Henry were just like people who join the police today, they wanted to impose some kind of order, and they wanted to save the innocent from abuse. We wanted to create a historical piece that had nothing to do with the decorum and seemliness of most other TV period dramas, which are usually gentle re-adaptations of familiar and much-loved novels.
Was it difficult to recreate Georgian London as a set? And the use of CGI was also important in setting the scene wasn't it?
JH: We were lucky to be able to recruit a lot of the creative team who had worked on 'A Harlot's Progress'. As with that drama, all of 'City of Vice' was filmed on one location – a stately home with lots of rooms that could be dressed and re-dressed to provide us with all our interiors. We knew from the start that we could not afford to do many expensive exterior shots, so we developed a CGI graphic based on a 1753 map of London – and this is what we use (instead of exterior scenes) to 'transport' the viewer from interior to interior. The map's a very handy device because it allows us to show exactly which parts of London our stories took place in. It's a great vehicle for getting across specific historical facts too. It's fascinating, for example, to discover that the Seven Dials area of Covent Garden – now a rather expensive and trendy part of London's theatreland – was once a shanty town that the Bow Street Runners considered too dangerous to visit.
What drew you to Henry Fielding as a lead character for a drama series?
CB: Fielding was one of a new generation of social reformers – this was the age in which the Foundling Hospital was established by William Hogarth, who was a close friend of Fielding's. The Bow Street Runners were, in a sense, a project in a similar vein – an attempt to bring order, and peace, to London's troubled streets. It was a very idealistic project: the Fielding brothers thought they could eliminate crime in a few years and the whole idea of creating a police force was extremely radical at the time. He wasn't a liberal in the modern sense, and although he was a radical up to a point, he was no revolutionary – part of his aim in founding the police was to protect property, most of which belonged to the upper classes. Of course, by the time he became Magistrate of Westminster and Middlesex, Henry Fielding was already a very successful playwright and novelist who I understand had been a bit of a rake when he was younger. He's portrayed in 'City of Vice' as a man who liked his port, and who rather scandalously married his housekeeper when he got her pregnant. He was undoubtedly a fascinating character – at once totally of his time, yet also ahead of it.
