The Incident Room

 

Review by Paul Towers, 10/11/25

The Incident Room by Olivia Hirst and David Byrne

Directed by Jake Leonard

Produced by Leicester Drama Society

At The Little Theatre til Saturday 27^th June 2026

In 1975 West Yorkshire Police in Leeds had the unenviable task of trying to hunt down the killer ultimately labelled The Yorkshire Ripper, Peter Sutcliffe.

Calling on the wealth of paperwork, interviews and records of the hunt Incident Room attempts to highlight the many failures of the police that led to 13 women being murdered and a further 7 attempted murders. Sutcliffe was eventually caught but who knows if the tally of victims is more?

In hindsight so many red herrings were chased, the media was mishandled and hoaxes were given unwarranted credence. Of course by modern computerised standards they were in the Stone Age and relying on paper and index files. It is no wonder things were missed.

The ensuing 6 years of the investigation are played out by a creative cast. Leading the narrative is DS Megan Winterburn (Natasha Carr) who, new to her rank, is constantly fighting the misogynistic boy’s club that is CID at the time. He is up against her superiors in the shape of Dick Holland (Andy Longley-Brown) and George Oldfield (Matt Evans). Jim Hobson (Russell Hughes) is another prehistoric chauvinist who dismisses Megan’s expertise.

Over on the desk at the other side of the office is Sylvia Swanson (Jane Towers) who is far too long in the tooth to put up with the laddish banter.

Newly promoted from PC to Detective Andrew Laptew (Joe Allen) is largely ignored by most of his colleagues but still manages to finally make the connection between Sutcliffe and the murders.

While the production rightly avoids glorifying any of the Ripper’s exploits and also neatly steers way from causing the dead girls’ relatives further anguish by dwelling on their appalling injuries one survivor, Maureen Long (Natalie Tebbutt), is used to show the pain of even those who escaped Sutcliffe’s clutches.

The Press in the form of reporter Tish Morgan (Holly Matusiewicz) don’t get away scot free either as their misguided attempts to help often hindered the police’s efforts to weed out hoaxes.

As expected this is a hard watch and you are entitled to come away cursing the inefficiency of the authorities to stop Sutcliffe earlier. However the authors have managed to lighten the mood from time to time with some laughs.

Pics: Jonathan Pryke

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