It would be a crime to miss this killer Versace drama
Iconfess I was no fan of London Spy, writer Tom Rob Smith’s last drama inspired by a killing. But that was then and this is now. After its enterprising recreation of the OJ Simpson case, the American Crime Story strand is feasting on the carcass of another front-page murder. This time, the celebrity is not the suspect but the victim. The Assassination of Gianni Versace (BBC Two) is adapted by Smith from Maureen Orth’s book Vulgar Favors, and it’s already a grippingly guilty pleasure.
If you’re hazy about the details, the opening scene carbon-dated the drama to 1997 when Gianni Versace (Edgar Ramirez) helpfully nipped down to the shops to buy that edition of Vogue with Mario Testino’s snap of Diana on the cover. Back at the gates of his ocean-facing Miami palazzo, he was shot, whereupon the press and public – a drooling gallery of first responders – swiftly descended, luridly bent on seeing and being seen.
These shows have the car-crash appeal of trashy gossip magazines – director Ryan Murphy, best known for Glee, also created Feud, the Hollywood bitch-fest recently shown on BBC Two. Such dramas are stuffed with grotesques (John Travolta as OJ’S attorney Robert Shapiro remains singed on many a retina). The grotesques-in-chief looks likely to be Penélope Cruz as the bottiglia-blonde Donatella Versace, a cold-blooded lioness in shades who set about making her dead brother’s boyfriend feel like superfluous trash. All very Suetonius.
She’s going to have a run for her money out-weirding Andrew Cunanan (Darren Criss), the serial killer who was introduced to us – and the sweet, gullible Versace – in flashbacks to 1990. Smith’s script chillingly unveiled Cunanan as an unreliable young creep not well versed in observing boundaries. Criss is toe-curlingly good as a very modern psychopath with a weather vane’s facility for swinging with the wind.
This semi-imagined reconstruction opens the door to a subculture with its own customs. In one deft scene, grieving boyfriend Antonio (Ricky Martin) explained the revolving door policy of the Versace boudoir to an uninitiated cop. It might not be for all comers, but I’m queasily hooked.
Nearly a decade ago, Lennie James bunked off to US TV. After all those seasons as Morgan Jones on The Walking Dead, it does the heart good to see him charismatically fronting a British drama of his own devising.
(Sky Atlantic) is a salty London thriller which has James’s fingerprints all over it: unusually for the lead actor, James takes the main credit as scriptwriter.
If that’s a surprise, it shouldn’t be. In 2000, he wrote Storm Damage, an intense, award-winning BBC drama riffing on his autobiographical experiences of a council-run foster home. Save Me also features a child cut adrift, in this case the daughter of Nelson “Nelly” Rowe (James). Nelly hasn’t seen Jody (Indeyarna Donaldson-holness) in 10 years but, on the day she disappears, the police have reason to accuse him of abduction.
Save Me has the pleasing smack of originality. For one, it’s a tale of two Londons: posh suburbia where Jody lives with her well-to-do mum Claire (Suranne Jones), and the teeming inner city of rowdy pubs and council estates where Nelly seems to have a lover behind every other front door.
Nelly’s language has a stagy street aroma that keeps your ears on alert. “Who this?” he said when answering an unknown number. “Me and you is you and me,” he reasoned romantically to one of his grumpier girlfriends. In his pavement patois, blood is claret, a clue is a scooby, and feelings don’t get hurt, they get pinched.
Save Me also has subtle things to say about race. There was a lovely scene when Nelly was being released from police custody in which one of his interviewers, a black detective (played by Nadine Marshall) let her stern mask drop and lent him some money. “O’halloran?” he asked, sceptical of her Irish surname.
The question of how on earth the worlds of Nelly and Claire managed to collide long enough to create a child will take some answering. Claire advised police of his ability to pull the wool over everyone’s eyes, and then illustrated her point by seeming to fall under his spell. Viewers may already know what she means. As Nelly would say, “proper dark, innit”.
The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story ★★★★ Save Me ★★★★