Lulu's been doing it for about sixty years.

I don't think anyone is enjoying it in that sense. It's hardly a comedy.
People so watch things like depictions of war and many other horrific things to get an experience of what something was like when they were not there.

Also as this is a dramatisation, we can enjoy the acting performances and think that they are great whilst being harrowed by the events they are portraying.

[quote=billiesmith;84824094]I'm watching but can't say I'm enjoying. The acting and atmospherics are first class but it just leaves me feeling drained and sad. Knowing that all this actually happened (and much worse than we are seeing) means I can't really get any enjoyment from it as I would if it was just a drama, but somehow I feel I have to see it through to the end now.

I've never seen the Richard Attenborough film and I don't think I'll be seeking it out.[/QUOTE
Sorry, but what you were expecting to see? Fawlty Towers?

John Barrowman is also terrible for it , he does Scottish and American depending on which show he is on , he can be speaking in his American accent he does when he is living there and then he is Scottish when over here

I feel much the same. I recorded last night's and started watching it tonight, but had to turn it off half way through, knowing what was going to happen. Probably the worst miscarriage of justice in British history. That poor boy was only 25 - life just beginning and thinking he could trust a monster like Christie.

It's not a bad watch but it is missing so much detail that it's beginning to get annoying. I feel they have missed more out than they have put in.

When at the start it says 'based on real events' it should actually say 'very loosely based on real events' or 'a passing nod to real events'.

I think with the BBC that they want the audience when watching dramas to make them feel as if they were eavesdropping.
I do find it hard to make out but just turn up the volume. Watching it on the Iplayer is better as I hear better watching it that way.
I like the fact that each of the episodes are from like the first one Ethel's point of view then last night's Tim's and the final one Christie's.
I have to admit though I really missed Ethel( Samantha Morton) last night as she was rarely in it. I did prefer last weeks episode to the one last night. I think the acting is superb. I'm looking forward to next weeks episode.

Yes, I understand that lots of people watch for various reasons - I wasn't expecting a comedy and my comments were not meant as a criticism of anyone else, I just didn't expect to feel quite so harrowed by it, was all I was saying.


No, not Fawlty Towers, but neither was I expecting sarcasm when I posted.


Thank you for understanding what I posted - I started watching as my OH wanted to watch. He watches lots of true life crime programmes - but I usually don't. However., as harrowing as I am finding it, I am also finding it quite compelling.

Samantha Morton and Tim Roth have always been two of my favourites.

She's always so good at conveying defeat, abjectness, quiet acceptance etc without making me want to shake her and wake her up.

Tim Roth is so watchful, icy, calculating, seductive etc.

Both their acting is so subtle.

This was inspired casting.

I'm surprised that people are surprised by this. It's not unusual for people to adopt accents in order to "fit in" or when desirable in certain situations. He clearly wanted to seem to be "at home" in London, hence the London accent, however it would have been odd for Tim to have not reverted back to his usual Welsh accent when he was around his own Welsh family members.

Just look at John Barrowman, whose US accent is completely shelved when he is back in Scotland with his parents.

EDIT: Having read more of the responses, I see others have used the same example.

It is a drama, not a documentary.

Yip...veers between east end of Glasgow, to south of England via mid Atlantic.

Absolutely. 2 top class British actors.

Ethel was even a witness for the prosecution. No doubt bullied into it by her husband.

The bodies weren't originally in the washhouse. There were workmen who had done some work in there after the murders, and the bodies weren't there. They weren't asked to give evidence, and the police forced them to change their statements anyway to fit the charge they had brought against Evans.

It's also appalling that a trial in which a person's life was literally hanging in the balance could be conducted over only three days, and the jury could make their decision in only 40 minutes.

Didn't Cilla Black do it too? From what I've heard she'd acquired a bit of a posh accent for her private life, but used an exaggerated Scouse accent for the telly.

My mum came from Liverpool, and lived in Brighton after she married. I never thought she had a Scouse accent, but the minute she was on the phone to her sister, out it came!

The Hanging Gardens of Babylon? Herds of wildebeest sweeping majestically across the plains?

and Nicky Campbell

I haven't read the whole thread but Ethel certainly seems to be generating more sympathy than I've ever encountered for the likes of Maxine Carr when it seems Ethel has more serious and repeated accusations against her .

As regards the show it's obviously followed the Kennedy narrative but I think it been excellent television with the type of performances you'd expect from Roth & Morton , difficult viewing at times but a must watch for me .

The appalling thing was not the brevity of the trial. Evans was the prime suspect and had they spent 3 weeks trying the case and 40 days deliberating on the verdict, the jury would have come to the same conclusion. However had more time and care been spent on investigating the case and more particularly searching 10 RIllington Place and its garden, then the bodies of the earlier victims would have been discovered and the inevitable inference that Christie was responsible for the demise of Beryl and baby Geraldine would have been made and Evans would have been exonerated.

I used to work for one, Peter Moore from Kinmel Bay. I was a projectionist at one of his cinemas in North Wales. I even used to have the occasional lift into work with him if my car was in the garage being repaired or MOT'd.
He went on to murder four homosexual men (as well as attacking more). The strange thing was, he was one himself.
I can tell you that he seemed normal and being a manager of three cinemas in the area would have plenty of interaction with the public and no-one suspected a thing.

while there is no music at such, the effects guy is having a whale of a time with his atmospheric low frequency rumbling at the bits that we are meant to think are frigtening, but like, aren't remotely frightening.

The series is running on the fumes of the the third epsode which better be bloody good after 116 minutes of arty flashbacks. plot misdirection, breathy talking from Roth and silent film style reaction shots from Morton.

Nobody suspected the fine doctor Shipman was a serial killer or the charming Ted Bundy.... I don't think it's strange that Peter Moore was a homosexual, most serial killers of gay men turn out to be gay themselves...... Thing is you never know who is giving you a lift to work in the mornings.

A friend of mine had Harold Shipman as his doctor. He said there seemed nothing suspicious about him that he could tell - although he wasn't in the demographic that he targeted of course.