Bodies is a new Brit TV series about four detectives in four different time periods of London who find themselves investigating the same murder. In it, Kyle Soller plays Detective Inspector Hillinghead who is seen in the aftermath of discovering the body in 1890. As he questions a photographer, Henry Ashe (George Parker), who appeared on the scene seconds after the body appeared, Hillinghead discovers some shocking (for the time) photographs.
Hillinghead discovers Ashe’s identity as a gay man through a series of portraits showing the queer nightlife of the East End in the 19th Century. One of these is of Ashe with another man.
“This man with you, he would corroborate you were with him before you found the body?” Hillinghead asks.
“He could go to jail!” then whispers Ashe urgently. “So why risk a photograph?” Hillinghead spits back, perhaps masking some envy…
After Ashe makes a move on him Hillinghead arrests the former for “gross indecency and unnatural acts behind closed doors.”
“Are you really so afraid of it?” Ashe asks back.
Netflix’s series is based on Si Spencer’s mind-bending graphic novel of the same name and sees police detectives in 1890, 1941, 2023, and 2053 find the same body in the same location on Longharvest Lane in London’s East End. Set against the background of the fact that during the 1890s homosexuality was illegal in England, even if sexual acts were done in private with no witnesses. The death penalty for acts of sodomy was earlier repealed in 1861. It was then replaced with a minimum of 10 years imprisonment.
Bodies is now screening on Netflix
