‘Ah! Our very own Juliet Bravo, or is it Jill Gascoine?’ Ashes to Ashes and Representations of Gender

Abstract

Ashes to Ashes (BBC 2008–10) combines two previously separate ideologies of the British police series. Co-creators Matthew Graham and Ashley Pharoah achieve this hybridity by altering their Life on Mars (BBC 2006–7) format: DI Sam Tyler ( John Simm), who previously solved crimes alongside DCI Gene Hunt (Philip Glenister) in 1970s Manchester, is now replaced by DI Alex Drake (Keeley Hawes) in 1980s London. Life on Mars’ reincarnation of the male-dominated action series shot on film in the 1970s, for example The Sweeney (ITV 1975–78) and The Professionals (ITV 1977–83), is now integrated with police series of the 1980s that centred on female leads. These series were shot in the studio and challenged sexism within the force, for example Juliet Bravo (BBC 1980–85) and The Gentle Touch (ITV 1980–84). This chapter argues that Drake’s character who, like Tyler, finds herself trapped in the past, struggling to find a way back to the present, represents this female strand of the police genre and Hunt represents the macho action subgenre. Therefore, Fenchurch CID in Ashes to Ashes is an office space that opens a dialogue between the 1970s and 1980s representations of detective work, thus scrutinising the shortcomings of each gendered approach. This office interior is significant because it is used as the narrative focal point of the series much like studio-shot police dramas of the 1980s.