A LIFE CUT SHORT
A powerful drama imagines the life ANTHONY WALKER, the Liverpool teenager killed in a racist attack, might have led
IT’S15 YEARS since Liverpool teenager Anthony Walker was killed in a brutal racist attack that robbed him of a bright future.
On the night of 29 July 2005, the A-level student was at a bus stop with his girlfriend and cousin when he was racially abused, chased and attacked by Michael Barton, brother of footballer Joey Barton, and Paul Taylor, who killed Anthony with an ice axe.
To mark the 15th anniversary of the murder, writer Jimmy Mcgovern has created a powerful drama, starring Toheeb Jimoh in the title role, that imagines the life Anthony might have led had he lived, and re-creates the shocking events of that tragic night.
Liverpudlian Mcgovern, whose 1996 TV film Hillsborough dramatised the 1989 football stadium tragedy, vividly recalls the shock waves felt in his native city following
Anthony’s death.
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‘It had such an impact,’ says the Cracker creator. ‘The sense of outrage was enormous, with everybody marching wanting
to be associated with the Walker family and their grief. It was akin to Hillsborough in that regard.’
The drama was inspired by conversations Mcgovern had with Anthony’s devout mother Gee – played by Rakie Ayola – who forgave her son’s killers.
‘She’s got the most powerful Christian faith of anybody
I’ve ever met,’ says Mcgovern. ‘When she said she forgave those two young men, my God, the city of Liverpool was just overwhelmed with feeling.
She’s an amazing woman.’
Mcgovern already knew Gee, having previously approached her to help him with other writing projects.‘every time I needed to talk about loss or grief, I went to Gee Walker first,’ he recalls. ‘She was really forthcoming and generous. And then one day, Gee