The lowdown:  'The Sally Lockhart Mysteries' is based on a series of mystery novels for young adults that are
set in Victorian England and written by Phillip Pulman, and feature the 16-year-old heroine of the title. The Ruby
in the Smoke is the first of two adaptations of the novels, and was broadcast on BBC1 on 27 December 2006. It
stars Billie Piper as Sally Lockhart, who has been orphaned by the death of her father, a shipping agent who was
drowned in suspicious circumstances in the South China Seas. It is October 1874, and the mystery and intrigue
begins when Sally receives a letter warning her to beware of the Seven Blessings. Her investigation into the letter
leads her to the offices of Lockhart & Selby, the firm owned by her father and his business partner, Samuel Selby.
She asks one of her father's employees, Mr Higgs, about the Seven Blessings, and he promptly dies after reading
the letter. She also meets an office clerk, Jim Taylor (Matt Smith in his first TV role), who becames an ally along
with photographer Frederick Garland and his sister, Rosa. 

Sally eventually comes into possession of a book about her father's experiences in India (where he lived with Sally
when she was young). The book appears to be the key to the mystery of her father's death, and an elderly woman
named Mrs Holland (Julie Walters) is desperate to get her hands on it, and is determined to kill Sally. Reading the
book, Sally learns about a Captain Marchbanks, who was in India with her father shortly before the Indian Mutiny,
and the missing Ruby of Agrapar. The mystery has links to the opium trade and Sally's past, and she learns that
Marchbanks is her real father. Sally and her friends also rescue a girl, Adelaide, from the clutches of Mrs Holland,
but the old woman and her allies assault Jim and kidnap the girl. Jim and Sally vow to find her.

Video:   Jim Taylor    3.7mb        Mrs Holland    2.5mb        Selby's letter    2.5mb        Jim and Adelaide    6.7mb
      
 << Back to the Matt Smith page