Ruth

Ruth Ellis This is story that is both fascinating and heart breaking that I was looking forward to. There is place for a discussion about the need for the ultimate justice to be delivered whilst also not shying away from its mistakes. Or as in the case whether like France there should be a place for a "crime of passion" is crime passionnel. It refers to a violent crime, such as murder, that is committed due to a strong impulse, like anger or jealousy.

But this film sadly is not it. First of all this is just too serious a topic for us to be distracted by "the message", its imposition here is inappropriate. My first impression however is to be frustrated by the poor set design and dialogue. What was the weird railway like carriage that was I think meant to be a café? If anyone wants to know they looked like then watch "Vera Drake" or "The Krays" or "Look Back in Anger". The sets are just jarringly inauthentic.

When she calls someone "pompous" I laughed out loud. Who wrote the dialogue I wondered. Then I saw Kelly Jones wrote the dialogue and she is posh from Oxford. Fair enough. But what about those accents? They sound like Dick Van Dyke, the casting is wrong.

Lastly ALL the men are bad. Horrible, nasty. Come on now this trope is just such a bore.

My father a WW2 veteran, he volunteered from Jamaica to serve in the RAF aged 18. After he was demobbed he returned to the UK in 1947. He was here when a great number of the notorious capital cases were tried & gross miscarriages of justice took place. I asked him about Ruth Ellis when an earlier series was made, he said that whilst she did not help herself by appearing more sympathetic, she should not have been hanged. He told me that he was vehemently against capital punishment. I watched the series and I could not fail to be moved by her situation especially knowing the effect that her execution had on her family as it cast a long shadow. Truly shocking & I am glad that capital punishment has been eradicated from the UK justice system.

Ruth Ellis ironically gained a sort of immortality in British criminal history right at the moment of her death as she was the last woman to be executed, unless the death penalty is ever reinstated, which I personally hope it isn't. Her sorry story has been told before on the small and big screen but here we are again, almost exactly 70 years on, for this 4-part ITV series starring Lucy Boynton in the title role.

It starts explosively as we witness Ellis cold-bloodedly murder her lover David Blakely by shooting him on a public street in front of witnesses. To that extent it's an open-and-shut case but as we're inevitably flashed back to how we've got to this point, the question of diminished responsibility through provocation emerges, which, if accepted by a jury, might reduce her sentence and so spare her life. This aspect of the narrative is what connects it to the present day, that of course, and the afore mentioned argument against capital punishment. However, as history tells us, neither the diminished responsibility defence or the abolition of the rope were passed into law until years later, although the point is made that this case.may well have assisted in hastening both law changes.

This was a high-end production, featuring an excellent central performance by Boynton torn between her two heartless lovers played by Laurie Davidson and Mark Stanley. The strong casting continues with other familiar faces such as the ubiquitous, super-reliable Toby Jones as Ellis's unyielding first defence solicitor, Arthur Darvill as her last-chance counsel and, as the sympathetic prison governor, Juliet Stevenson. Yes, that final piece of casting tells you diversity supercedes authenticity which you see reflected in other places too, but nevertheless, cleverly, atmospherically and at the end, sympathetically directed, this was a compelling and impactful mini-series well worth watching.

As with the film Let Him Have It, Iit's hard to do a real life story but, at least 70 years on, there are few people around to state how lose to the truth the characters and the facts are.

There is a top cast here but most of them do seem to be playing themselves. Lucy Boynton is just like the posh girl she played in Why Didn't They Ask Evans, Joe Armstrong does a poor job trying not to remind us of his dad in New Tricks, Toby Jones is Mr Bates, that metal detector guy and all his other roles rolled into one while Mark Stanley puts on a moustache and glasses trying to hope we don't remember him from Happy Valley while Julie Stevenson tries not to play the psychologist from Professor T.

Admittedly, Nigel Havers does a good job playing his grandad assuming his grandad was just like Nigel Havers.

All this window dressing, including great deal on 1950s cars and styles, doesn't hide the fact that in all modern dramas, men are portrayed as weak or evil even in true crime dramas set 70 years ago.

The swipe at the establishment of the day is understandable. Ellis is shown to be a common girl doing well for herself in business but she has no power of the establishment and the old school tie.

A fair watch but you don't put your best shows on tv in the spring. A modern feminist attack on an old story.

Watched> Wednesday, 26th March, 2025 @ Edge Water Studios. Rated 4.5 * * * * Very Good to Excellent - 8/10 < Cert. Would be a 15 > Four Part Mini Series by ITV. Great acting performance from Lucy Boynton, as Ruth Ellis, followed by very good performances from Toby Jones, as John Bickford, Mark Stanley, as Desmond Cussen and Laurie Davidson, as David Blakely. This is a Notoriously TRUE STORY, that changed British history, because of Ruth Ellis (age 28) who was the last woman in Britain to be sentenced to death, by hanging, on Wednesday, 13th July, 1955 at 9 am. She was WRONGLY CONVICTED, as evidence was with held, which meant she could have received a life sentence, instead of The DEATH Penalty. Badly handled by the authorities at the time, SHAME ON THEM!! This 4-part film can be dark and solemn, with upsetting scenes. Their are lighter moments at times, but mainly this is such a tragic story of a young lady who wanted to live her life to the full, right or wrongly. (ps)