Touching, beautifully acted ...but the message was very one-sided

When I was a little boy, I wanted to be a lion. That’s not a facetious or sarcastic statement. Odd as it sounds, it’s simply factual.

From the age of about three till I was six or so, I tried everything I could think of to become a lion. I practised roaring and leaping. I pleaded with my mother to sew a suit that would transform me. My best friend was an imaginary lion.

It’s a good job that medical science could do nothing to fulfil my feline desire, not least because a dentist from the U.S. on a callous trophy-hunting safari would have shot me long ago.

no doubt I was a peculiar child, but many are. That’s nothing new. Children are not always rational — and adults have a duty to recognise this, no matter how heartfelt and sincere their pleas.

Max, the 11-year-old hero of Butterfly (ITV), wants to be a girl. he wants it desperately.

It’s a touching story, beautifully acted by its young stars (Callum Booth-Ford as Max, with Millie Gibson as big sister Lily), but its biased message is frightening: the child is right, the adults who oppose him are wrong.

The dad is a bullying chauvinist who slaps his son to the ground and screams in his face. his gran is an acid-tongued bigot. At school, hard-punching roles, but she’s not one for big breakdowns.

A shrieking, flailing disintegration into emotional madness was in full spate on the other channel, as Jenna Coleman let rip on The Cry (BBC1).

This fragmented story of the media circus and court trial that surrounded a baby’s abduction came together in the final moments last week, with the revelation that parents Joanna and Alistair (Coleman and ewen Leslie) knew their child was dead — and were lying to the police. This week’s cliffhanger was even better.

Piecing all the scattered scenes is still like doing mental sudoku, but this drama is worth the effort. The image of Joanna running in howling despair to throw herself under a thundering lorry, only to be dragged back by her husband, hammered our emotions.

however she actually caused her baby’s death, even if it was deliberate, Coleman convinced us that her character is in torment. This must have been an exhausting role to play.

It’s a shame that some of the plotting is lazy. The story turns on two unmarked bottles — one containing baby’s medicine, the other poison.

This device is feeble. Acting this good deserves better.