El ladrón, su mujer y la canoa

If this had been fiction it would have been written off as ridiculous.

The fact that it is true makes it even more unbelievable.

It is hard to imagine what was going through John Darwin's mind to think he could get away with it, although he was ably assisted by such institutions as the passport applications and coroner's offices.

Top performances by Monica Dolan and Eddie Marsan.

It was hard to keep a straight face when Karl Pilkington was on screen.

This four part show had me and the Mrs gripped. I'm surprised by the lack of reviews for it but honestly everyone should watch this, great story, great musical story telling, great acting from the two mains.

Honestly give it watch.

Parts are slow , but the acting is superb . You loathe the characters you are supposed to and feel sorry for the others . It gets better and bette and was such an interesting story , yet so hard to believe . Worth watching.

I'm guessing the weak name of this series was initially a guide-title that somehow never got changed as the production progressed, but this offbeat four-part ITV mini-series on the life and crimes of fraudster John Darwin proved highly entertaining.

I must admit that I somehow missed this news story when it first broke in the U. K. some years ago but I don't know if I'd have believed it even if I had. Truly truth is stranger than fiction as you just couldn't make this stuff up!

Darwin, a middle-aged retired prison officer gets deep into debt after overstretching himself financially in the Buy-to-Let mortgage market and comes up with the blinding idea to take out a large life insurance policy, fake his own death, in, of all things, a canoeing accident and then persuade, although some might argue, actually coerce his long-suffering, much put-upon wife Anne to play her part as the grieving "widow" and then after a suitable period of time has elapsed, have her claim on said life insurance policy, before they reunite clandestinely later, his debts cleared and the couple in financial clover.

Unsurprisingly, things don't go exactly to plan, but by a combination of seeming luck and Darwin's ability to think on his feet when the going gets tough, he ends up assuming a new identity and the couple somehow get away with it as they end up abandoning their two loving, adult sons to live in comparative luxury in far distant Panama, being a country, it would seem with a rather lax immigration policy.

However, when it becomes impossible for Darwin to stay in that country any further without proof of his U. K. birthright, he boldly or recklessly, take your pick, decides to return to old Blighty, come back to life and plead amnesia. Even this appears to be going in his favour until an innocent picture taken at an estate agent's office in Panama proves to be the stitch in their story which starts to unravel from there.

Presented from narrator Anne's viewpoint, it's clear that the programme-makers had their own preset agenda in promoting Anne as very much the victim of her husband's emotional blackmail and bullying down the years. While it did seem unfair that she actually got a longer prison sentence than her husband, I must admit to having some feelings of ambivalence about her ongoing deception of her two children.

Still, the more unreal the elements of the story seemed, the more compulsive it proved to watch. Both the leads were convincing in their real-life portrayals, Eddie Marsan as the thoroughly unlikeable and charmless schemer Darwin and Monica Dolan as his doormat of a wife who slavishly but foolishly falls in behind her husband's hair-brained plan.

This was certainly one Darwin whose theory on natural selection proved wholly incorrect and whose own take on the survival of the fittest ethos didn't in the end, quite extend to successfully returning from his own death.

What an incredible story of incompetence and stupidity ! I didn't expect much of this series but Eddie Marsan and Monica Dolan put in sterling performances in portraying the amazingly inept Darwins.

The story is riveting, particularly as it's true, and the cast and production team do a cracking job. Makes one proud to be British when we can produce criminals of such low calibre !!

Recommended viewing.