A look into heart of Fred West
APPROPRIATE ADULT TV3, TONIGHT, 9PM
FIRST aired on ITV back in 2011, Appropriate Adult (TV3, tonight, 9pm) is a truly remarkable and almost uncomfortably memorable drama which starkly divided opinion at the time.
The ‘appropriate adult’ of the title is Janet Leach (played here by Emily Watson) who was given that role during the investigation into the infamous Fred West murders.
‘Appropriate adults’ are those people – usually social workers, but they can come from all walks of life – who are present during police interviews with children and vulnerable adults.
Designed to ensure that the monstrous West was aware of the gravity of his crimes and, of course, to ensure that no slippery defence lawyer could later find some excuse to secure an unlikely acquittal, the real life Leach quickly found herself in a moral grey zone – he told her that he had killed even more people than the police initially suspected, but the rules of confidentiality meant she couldn’t inform the authorities.
It was a controversial situation at the time of the trial and it’s no surprise that this drama only added fuel to the fire.
Some of the criticisms of Appropriate Adult were genuinely stupid. For example, some of the English papers condemned the casting of the rather handsome Dominic West as the serial killer, as if that would somehow glamorise Fred.
But there were other, more serious qualms with the show and some of the senior cops who worked the case were extremely critical of the liberties taken with the facts.
In fairness to ITV, it was quick to point out that this was a drama, not a documentary, and even the policeman who was most critical at the time, Detective Superintendent John Bennett, admitted that the portrayal of Fred and Rose (brilliantly rendered here by Monica Dolan) was ‘hauntingly accurate’.
Dominic West is probably still best know to most of us as McNulty from The Wire, but his performance here is genuinely remarkable. I was also about to say that Emily Watson is remarkable as Janet Leach, but then the thought struck me – when has she ever been anything less than remarkable?
If you missed it the first time, don’t miss it tonight.
It’s not necessarily easy viewing – as you would expect, given the subject matter – but it is absolutely compelling and the performances by Watson, West and Dolan are all superb.
Let’s put it this way: you’ll never listen to a West Country accent again without shivering – Dominic West sounds like a murderous, psychotic Wurzel. Now that’s a phrase I never thought I’d ever have to write.