Cracker ace Mcgovern’s alert on show
CRACKER screenwriter Jimmy Mcgovern is warning viewers of his latest show – a dramatisation of the ice-pick murder of a black teenager – will leave them
“deeply affected”.
Anthony depicts the 2005 stabbing of Anthonywalker, 18, by Michael Barton, the brother of football boss Joey, and their cousin Paul Taylor.
Merseyside-born Jimmy, 70, imagines what the victim might have missed in the following seven years of his life after the death including marriage.
He says: “I don’t think you will have a more powerful demonstration of loss than this.”
But the drama – with Toheeb Jimoh as Anthony and Julia Brown as bride Katherine – also looks at “horrendous” scenes from the murder including the removal of the weapon from Anthony’s skull.
Jimmy, whose work also includes Bafta-award winning The Accused, and Hillsborough says: “I actually spoke to one of the surgeons who operated on Anthony.
“He was stunned by the crime, what those two [killers] had done.”
Mcgovern worked on the show with Anthony’s mother Gee who asked him to produce it.
He had always turned to her when researching other projects about grief but explains: “Then she approached me in 2016 and said, ‘Jimmy, it’s my turn now. I want you to tell Anthony’s story’. She had wanted more time to pass. It’s always going to be painful but probably not as raw.” A lighter moment comes with a scene set on TV quiz show Pointless and featuring cameos from hosts Alexander Armstrong and Richard Osman.
Jimmy – who called on his own experience as a contestant – reveals: “I said sorry to Gee about that one.that came from me. I wanted Anthony to be original, that’s why I did it.”
Jimmy spoke to Anthony’s entire family about his plans. He says: “I am sitting there in front of these beautiful black women explaining how this old white man was going to tell them the story of a young black man.
“I certainly felt entitled to... because I’d been asked to by Gee. I was also brought up in the inner city of Liverpool, and saw a lot of racism.”
But he says the timing as the Black Lives Matter movement grows is coincidence, admitting: “It’s just a fluke. It will have an impact on how it’s seen. But I’ve learned a lesson from it.we had a mainly white crew. The company is based in northern Liverpool – a mainly white area.
“In future we will look at the ethnic make up of the crew.”
● Anthony, BBC One, tomorrow, 8.30pm