Peter Medak

The Ruling Class

Peter Medak’s 1972 adaptation of Peter Barnes’s play stars Peter O'Toole as Jack Gurney, a paranoid schizophrenic who inherits a peerage and cycles between believing he is Christ and Jack the Ripper. Set against the decaying grandeur of Harlaxton Manor, the film uses theatrical staging, sharp dialogue and O'Toole’s ferocious performance to dissect class, psychiatry and institutional power. Though divisive on release, it endures as a formally bold, morally uncompromising satire.