Plodding cops, daft ghosts... and a confession to my kids
Deceit Channel 4, Friday HHHHH G hosts BBC1, Monday HHHHH
Deceit is a drama based on the true story that is the shockingly catastrophic investigation into the 1992 murder of 23-year-old Rachel Nickell, who was stabbed 49 times and sexually assaulted while out for a walk with her son on Wimbledon Common.
The police fixated on Colin Stagg as their only suspect – poor Colin Stagg, who was put through hell – and set up a honeytrap in the form of an undercover female police officer to extract a confession, God forgive them. Or not. (Not, probably, since their fixation on Stagg meant the real killer remained at large for another 16 years.)
This is told from the point of view of that honeytrap, the officer who was codenamed ‘Lizzie James’. The writer of the series, Emilia di Girolamo, has said she wanted to come at this from ‘a female perspective’ and, as you know, I am all for the female perspective. If I had my way, everything would be told from a female perspective, including Top Gear and The Sopranos.
But there is something turgid about the storytelling here. It’s being shown weekly but all four episodes are available, and I managed two-and-a-half, whereas usually I’d be fascinated and gripped. (The nearest comparison I can think of is ITV’s The Lost Honour Of Christopher Jefferies, which did prove both fascinating and gripping.)
It stars Niamh Algar as ‘Lizzie James’, whom we first meet during an undercover, dimly lit drugs sting. She immediately cuts an isolated figure. She suffers a bad graze to her face but none of her fellow officers ever asks her about it. The misogyny of the time is blatantly drawn, to the point of cliche, perhaps. She is passed over for a commendation because she’s a woman. One male officer tells her not to start getting broody for a baby ‘as who will make my tea?’ Goddamn it, make it yourself, she would, one hopes, say today. But this was then.
Next she’s co-opted by Wimbledon police, who are under immense pressure to find Rachel’s killer. Stagg, a local loner, played here by Sion Daniel Young, resembles the e-fit provided by witnesses, but no evidence links him to the crime.
The investigators had also turned to a new (and ridiculous) development in police inquiries: criminal profiling. A psychologist, Paul Britton (Eddie Marsan), was asked to create a character portrait of the kind of individual who would commit such an atrocity, and this matched Stagg too.
I think we can all now agree that the police would, in fact, have been far better off just putting the money into buying a big magnifying glass or something.
The tone is odd, too. Marsan plays Britton as weird and creepy, practically licking his lips when he talks to ‘Lizzie’ about the sound a knife makes cutting through human flesh.
Perhaps this was done to discredit him, or perhaps he was really like that, but it felt overblown. Meanwhile, the story was told in an always dimly lit, plodding way, with very little tension or suspense. Yes, we know what happens, but knowing what happens can also be tense and suspenseful. (See, for example, the Jeremy Bamber murders at White House Farm in 1985.)
Most crucially, the characters felt less like actual people and more like plot ciphers. Did we find out anything about ‘Lizzie’? That might help us care about her? I would also say that even though I believe this was made with Stagg’s co-operation, hearing his letters and his violent sexual fantasies read out, as Britton licked his lips, did not make for comfortable viewing. This is an important story, and there is nothing wrong with any of the performances – Young’s is particularly affecting – but in the end I was very pleased to leave it behind and turn to something wonderfully uncomplicated and jolly, like Ghosts.
Ghosts is made by the same team as Horrible Histories and is, perhaps, for the parents who carried on watching Horrible Histories even after their children left home. (Guilty as charged, embarrassingly.) It’s back for a third series and the basic premise is that Alison and Mike (Charlotte Ritchie and Kiell Smith-Bynoe) have found themselves owners of a stately pile populated by ghosts that only she can see (long story).
It is uncynical, goodnatured and well performed by a talented cast, and it makes me laugh.
This week, amid the many daft sub-plots, we were offered the origins story of Sir Humphrey Bone (Laurence Rickard), the Tudor toff ghost who, having been beheaded, has a head that detaches from his body and gets lost around the house. (His head is like your reading glasses – could be anywhere.) Bone’s story involved Queen Mary, Elizabeth I, a scheming wife, a book club and two decorative swords falling off the wall, and it was, dare I say, not just funny but also a little bit moving. (He did so love his scheming wife.)
The half-hour always whizzes by and it’s delightful, innocent fun. I was only joking, by the way, when I said I carried on watching Horrible Histories even after my children left home. (Except I wasn’t. But I don’t know if they know that. They do now.)