FOUR LIVES
He’s famous for playing it for laughs, but Stephen Merchant’s next big project will be devoid of them. When
Four Lives finally reaches our screens it will be one of the darkest dramas around.
The three-parter will tell the story of
Stephen Port, the man dubbed the
Grindr Killer, who received a life sentence in November
2016 for the rape and murder of four young men in their
20s – Anthony Walgate, Gabriel Kovari, Daniel Whitworth and Jack Taylor. He’d met them through dating websites and taken them back to his flat in east London, before drugging, raping and murdering them. It’s been written by Jeff
Pope and Neil McKay and will tell the story from the point of view of the families of Port’s victims. Port will feature prominently and it’s a landmark role for Stephen Merchant (right, as Port), whose comedy career includes hit sitcoms The Office and Extras.
‘I’ve done a lot of comedy but don’t watch it much,’ he says. ‘I watch drama or more serious-minded stuff and I’d always wanted the chance to be able to do that kind of work. That’s definitely been a goal.’
Four Lives will show the investigations undertaken by the family of Port’s fourth victim Jack Taylor, which showed police the striking similarities between his death and the previous three murders. It will also feature the private investigations undertaken by John Pape, landlord of Port’s victim Gabriel Kovari, a hunt that started when he Googled ‘unexplained deaths in Barking’ for further details about Kovari and found a newspaper report about Anthony Walgate, a fashion student from Hull whose body had been found in strikingly similar circumstances to Kovari’s. W1A star Rufus Jones plays John Pape and Sheridan Smith is Sarah Sak (Sheridan as Sarah, inset left), the mother of Anthony Walgate. Stephen Port was finally caught by the police in October 2015 after killing the men between June
2014 and
September
2015, and the drama will be shown after the victims’ inquests have been held, so producers can take the results into account. BBC1 drama, coming soon