WAS IT MURDER ...OR MISHAP?
The wife of a crime writer lies dead at the bottom of the stairs – but how did she get there? Colin Firth and Toni Collette star in a gripping real-life drama
PICK OF THE WEEK THE STAIRCASE Thursday, Sky Atlantic, 9pm, 10.20pm & 11.35pm
Colin Firth cemented his place in TV history after setting pulses racing in Pride And Prejudice, but it’s more than 20 years since he last appeared on the small screen. Now the Oscar-winning film star is back in a far darker leading role, in a complex drama based on one of the most fascinating stories of true crime in the US in recent years.
One night in December 2001, novelist Michael Peterson (Firth, left) is distraught as he calls the emergency services to say he has found his second wife Kathleen (Toni Collette, left) badly hurt and unconscious at the foot of the staircase in their plush North Carolina home. The injuries prove to be fatal, but when the authorities investigate Kathleen’s death, almost everything beyond those basic facts quickly comes into question.
At the heart of the sensational news story is the question of whether there was a tragic accident as a result of her drinking that evening or a brutal, callous murder carried out by her husband.
It was a question that exercised the courts for some 16 years, but the case also mesmerised the public in America and across the world, thanks to an unsparing, in-depth documentary series by French film-makers, to whom Michael gave full access and his complete consent as he continued to protest his innocence at every opportunity.
Out of these elements, the HBO network has crafted a compelling eight-part drama that challenges us to look at the story from every angle as the point of view shifts from one character to another and back and forth in time.
As we are immersed in the rich family life of the Petersons before that fateful night in 2001, we see Kathleen as vibrantly alive, if troubled by nagging doubts about her husband and their marriage. But then the story races through the years as Michael faces prosecution. This is where Firth’s performance comes into its own.
He’s an actor we’re used to seeing playing fundamentally virtuous characters, from George VI in
The King’s Speech to Kingsman, and it’s that quality of essential decency that demands our sympathy, even as the case stacks up against Michael with seemingly irrefutable power.
Juliette Binoche (left), Patrick Schwarzenegger (son of Arnold) and Sophie Turner (Game Of Thrones) add further lustre to the cast. When you’re done watching, you can turn to Netflix for the acclaimed documentary series on the saga of the Petersons – also called The Staircase – to come to your own verdict on the case.