TV Review: RILLINGTON PLACE + THE CULT THAT STOLE CHILDREN

This article was originally published in The Dundee Courier on 3 December 2016.

https://www.thecourier.co.uk/category/lifestyle/entertainment/tv-film/

RILLINGTON PLACE: Tuesday, BBC One

STORYVILLE: THE CULT THAT STOLE CHILDREN – INSIDE THE FAMILY: Tuesday, BBC Four

Few figures in history have encapsulated “the banality of evil” more than notorious serial killer John Reginald Christie.

With his bald bonce, tortoiseshell spectacles and mousy demeanour, he was outwardly nondescript in every way. And yet between 1943 and 1953 he murdered at least eight women in his sepulchral abode at 10 Rillington Place in North-west London.

Such was Christie’s infamy, his squalid saga was dramatised in a classic 1971 film starring Richard Attenborough.

That, seemingly, was the last word on this insidious monster. However, writers Tracey Malone and Ed Whitmore beg to differ with RILLINGTON PLACE, a grimly absorbing three-part drama starring Tim Roth as Christie and Samantha Morton as his conflicted wife, Ethel.

So how does it differ from the Attenborough film? Well, it began by focusing on Ethel as a kind of tragic identification figure. By viewing Christie from her perspective, it provides a chillingly claustrophobic sense of what it must’ve been like to live with him.

It also means that his murders take place off screen – at least for now - as Ethel never witnessed them. Instead we receive terrifying hints – a blood-stained mattress, a suspicious suitcase containing unknown horrors, Christie digging in the garden and skulking around at night with a hammer – while downtrodden Ethel gradually twigs that her shifty husband is more than a “mere” philanderer, thief, voyeur and liar.

Episode one also fleshed out their backstory. It ended as the events of the film began, i.e. the arrival at Rillington Place of doomed neighbour Timothy Evans, who would eventually be hanged for one of Christie’s murders.  

Roth and Morton are extraordinary. With his flat, whispered Yorkshire tones and eerie self-containment, he’s like a sinister Jon Ronson disguised as Arthur Lowe. His steadfast calm being broken by a sudden physical attack on Ethel was particularly disturbing, revealing as it did the psychotic violence lurking beneath that apparently pathetic veneer.

 Meanwhile, Morton’s subtly expressive face captures Ethel’s perpetual tug of war between hurt, suspicion, anger, disgust and denial. The writers suggested that she covered for Christie on at least one occasion, presumably out of misplaced loyalty to the only man she’d ever been with. To troubling effect, Morton nails this complex ambiguity.

Suitably mired in a dank, shabby, weak tea haze of gloomy wartime and post-war misery, Rillington Place excels on every level. Despite the lurid subject matter, it’s an admirably restrained yet gut-punching study of everyday evil.

Likewise, the sad and angering Storyville documentary THE CULT THAT STOLE CHILDREN: INSIDE THE FAMILY examined the harrowing psychological toll of lives destroyed by mentally unstable captors.

In 1963, Anne Hamilton-Byrne founded an Australian sect comprised of supposedly respectable adults and children either sired by followers, or stolen from vulnerable young mothers.

Believing herself to be Christ incarnate, for over 20 years this charismatic psychopath oversaw a despicably cruel regime in which children were starved, beaten and fed LSD. The programme featured testimonies from “her” children, all of them unimaginably scarred by their ordeal. Even the police officers investigating the case were traumatised.

She got away with it by exploiting draconian attitudes towards unwed mothers, while securing/manipulating friends in high places. When finally apprehended, all she faced was a fine for falsifying adoption documents. Today she resides in a retirement home, her memories vanquished by Alzheimer’s.

The Australian justice system and society at large failed these abused children. It was a scandal beyond your darkest nightmares.

TV Review: JEKYLL AND HYDE and DETECTORISTS

This article was originally published in The Dundee Courier on 31 October 2015.

http://www.thecourier.co.uk/lifestyle

Jekyll and Hyde: Sunday, STV

Detectorists: Thursday, BBC Four

Paul Whitelaw

Ever since Doctor Who reasserted its position as the reigning champ of weekend family viewing, ITV has made a few, almost grudging, attempts at establishing a suitable rival.

Time-hopping dinosaur romp Primeval was their most successful effort, but even its biggest fans would concede that it never troubled Doctor Who in terms of capturing the wider imagination. And the less said about Demons – which only shell-shocked TV critics and around 50% of those who made it choose to remember anyway – the better.

So it's perhaps surprising that it's taken them this long to enlist the talents of Fast Show alumnus Charlie Higson, a critically acclaimed, best-selling author whose success with the Young James Bond novels has secured his reputation as a gifted purveyor of intelligent children's fiction. On the basis of episode one, Jekyll and Hyde already feels like ITV's first serious challenger to Doctor Who's crown.

However, it's not without its flaws. An unofficial sequel to Robert Louis Stevenson's classic exploration of a vexing split personality disorder, it follows Jekyll's grandson, Robert, as he gradually unearths his poisoned family lineage.

Raised by a family in Ceylon – hence his impeccable upper-class English accent – he's introduced as a kindly colonial physician capable of superhuman feats of strength when emotionally piqued. He's basically a 1930s Hulk, and Higson doesn't stint on the comparisons. With its canted angles, stylised action sequences and somewhat campy feel, the show is framed as a live-action comic book.

That heightened-reality approach ensures that its flashes of violence and horror don't feel inappropriate for a family audience. Children can differentiate between this world and ours. Granted, the sight of a dog-hybrid 'Harbinger' – Higson's Jekyll universe if full of bizarre creatures - was unsettling for even a man as robust and fearless as myself, but God forbid I should represent the psyche of the average child.

More troubling, perhaps, was the fiery death of Robert's adoptive Indian family, murdered at the hands of an intriguingly sadistic villain in British military uniform. Then again, I doubt many children were conscious of its significance as an historical metaphor. They were probably just perturbed by the spectacle of some kindly people being incinerated by a greasy Englishman with an evil moustache. So that's okay.

Though peppered with clunky exposition – hopefully that will subside after this attention-grabbing scene-setter – this was a decent introduction.

The charismatic Tom Bateman handles his twin roles impressively: a Colin Firth-esque bumbler in Jekyll repose, a lascivious demon in two-fisted Hyde mode. From Frederic March to Jerry Lewis, Jekyll/Hyde tales rely upon acting versatility. Higson's reinvention shows promise, but Bateman is selling it so far.

There's something deeply heartening about the deserved success of writer/director/actor Mackenzie Crook's award-winning sleeper hit Detectorists. Maybe it's because no one ever expected Gareth from The Office to come up with a sitcom of such depth, wit and sensitivity.

It makes Derek, the saccharine dogs dinner served up by his former employer, Ricky Gervais, look even worse by comparison.

A low-key sitcom about two charmingly co-dependent metal detectorists - the other played by the great Toby Jones - when it returned last week I instantly eased back into its rural rhythms. Space precludes me from writing more, but I urge you to befriend this wonderful show. It's one of the best British comedies of the last ten years.

TV Review: THE MISSING and INTRUDERS

A version of this article was originally published in The Courier on 1st November 2014.

http://www.thecourier.co.uk/lifestyle

The Missing: Tuesday, BBC One

Intruders: Monday, BBC Two

Paul Whitelaw

There is something uniquely visceral about stories involving vanished loved ones. The thought of losing someone through unexplained circumstances is a terror we can all relate to. So much so, it doesn't bear thinking about.

Thank heavens, then, for fictional drama! Like an unflattering mirror, it reflects those fears from a safe, if queasy, distance. Two new shows explored this area last week, albeit in markedly different styles.

Promising eight-part thriller The Missing stars the excellent James Nesbitt on suitably fraught and haunted form as the father of an abducted child. Five year-old Oliver was snatched during a happy family holiday to France in 2006. While standing in a crowded pub showing World Cup coverage, Tony (Nesbitt) suddenly noticed that Oliver was missing. There one moment, gone the next.

This impressively handled sequence tracked Tony's rising panic as he frantically searched their holiday resort. Every parent's nightmare writ large.

From there we switched between 2006 and the present day, where Tony, burdened with guilt, has become a heavy-drinking loner obsessively trawling the town where Oliver was last seen. His refusal to let go had torn his marriage apart, forcing his ex into the arms of the (rather creepy) British police liaison officer responsible for Oliver's case.

This plot point struck a rather jarring note, as did the highly convenient twist of tracing Oliver's movements through a second-hand shop with meticulously thorough records of sale. What's more – and call me a heartless monster if you will – the cliff-hanger discovery of Oliver's drawing of jug-eared daddy on a basement wall was, I'm afraid, borderline comical.

There's nothing funny about the subject matter, of course, but the execution was slightly overcooked at times. With such a sensitive issue at its core, sibling writers Harry and Jack Williams – who up until now have a background in mediocre comedy - need to tread very carefully.

Fortunately, The Missing is carefully handled for the most part. Niggling missteps aside, it's an engrossing mystery with a powerful emotional kick. While it remains to be seen if they can sustain this story over eight hours, for now it contains enough dark hints and unanswered questions to maintain a hefty sense of intrigue.

Incidentally, aside from its self-evident basis in the Madeleine McCann case, The Missing may be partly inspired by a little-seen yet painfully affecting independent film from 2004 called Keane, featuring a tour de force performance from Damian Lewis. For connoisseurs of bleak art, it comes highly recommended.

Tentatively, I'll make a similar claim for Intruders. Not for the faint-hearted, it's a grisly conspiracy thriller rooted in horror and sci-fi in which John Simm – passable US accent and all – plays a former cop on the hunt for his missing wife.

That's the simplified synopsis. What Intruders is really about is anyone's guess at this stage, although the concept of reincarnation is obviously key to its mystery.

Written by X Files alumnus Glen Morgan and directed by Eduardo 'The Blair Witch Project' Sanchez, its chilly, disquieting atmosphere is occasionally punctured by blunt bursts of violence. I knew I was watching an unconventional drama when at one point it looked as though we were about to see a child being murdered in cold blood. NB: we weren't.

A hint of dark humour undermines Intruders' more portentous leanings, and the central conceit of a shadowy underground organisation visiting homes and murdering the inhabitants is fundamentally chilling. Let's just hope it doesn't descend into abject bloody nonsense, as these things often tend to.