Life and times of a Victorian serial killer

According to the skipping rhyme she inspired, the Victorian serial killer Mary Ann Cotton is ‘dead and forgotten’, but it seems that’s not quite the case.

Her story has intrigued writer Gwyneth Hughes, who explores the life of the poisoner in the new twopart drama Dark Angel (Monday, ITV, 9pm).

And it also captured the attention of Downton Abbey star Joanne Froggatt, who plays Mary Ann. The actress says: “I was really excited about this role. Although Dark Angel is a period drama, Mary Ann could not be more different from [Downton’s] Anna Bates.”

In fact, Joanne was so intrigued, she even did some of her own additional research into Mary Ann to help understand what drove the real-life murderer. She explains: “I read a book about her which is a factual account, as far as we know, of what happened. Then I did some research on female serial killer sin general and the differences between male and female serial killers.

“Because to play somebody you have to make sense of what they’ re doing in their head. Not only to make sense of it for you, but you have to make sense of their thought processes and their feelings. It’s very challenging with such serious subject mat- ter.”

When we first meet Mary in this opening episode, she’s in her mid-twenties, married to Billy Mowbray( Tom Varey), and has lost four children over the course of four years - only her fifth daughter, Margaret Jane, has survived.

The family, who have been living in Cornwall, decide to make a fresh start by returning to Mary’s native Seaham, County Durham, where they receive a warm welcome from her mother Margaret (Penny Layden) a nd kindly stepfather George (Alun Armstrong). In fact, George is so keen to protect his step daughter’ s interests, he persuades Billy to take out life insurance -and when Mary then meets flirtatious miner Joe (Jonas Armstrong) while buying arsenic to sort out a case of bed bugs, it looks like she will be collecting on the policy

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