Four Lives

Four lives tells the real life story of the horrific murders of 4 young men on the very cusp of thier lives, & where the utterly shocking police incompetnce & failure to investigate, which lead to more lives being cruelly snatched away.

Stephen Merchant is utterly chilling as murderer Stephen Port. His performance is spine tingling yet almost muted making the whole persona seem eerie & sinister. Sheriden Smith as the mother of Anthony Walgate (Sarah Sac) is highly emotive & brought a tear to my eye as the mothers that lost their sons are my age & made me realise this could have happened to my son. So her performance gave me a personal connection. The supporting cast are also excellent, where I could find no fault. This deeply upsetting story is told with tact & a certain grace which I appreciate & respect, however I feel the side of the story dealing with the incompetent police investigation was slightly lacking & needed more depth. The blatent homophobia displayed by the police during the real investigation was disgusting & staggering but this is not touched upon untill part 3 of the drama.

Overall this is a great drama though & highly compelling with terrific performances. The pacing is smooth, direction is almost flawless & the photography is superb. We can also take comfort that the real killer, Stephen Port is now safely locked away on a whole life term so he can no longer terrorise the Gay community & law abiding society. Thank goodness!

8 stars for all the cast & crew. X.

Anyone watching this adaptation of a terribly botched investigation by the Met Police must first and foremost think of the four young men who lost their lives to this monster and to the friends and family still mourning their loss.

The writers correctly took a respectful approach to honestly retelling the stories of the four young men accurately without adding melodrama or sensationalising.

It was very well made in all departments with strong understated performances from Sheridan Smith and Stephen Merchant in particular and some great work from many of the supporting actors.

Powerful and moving television that left me angry and in tears.

Very good drama based on a recent true story

Excellent performance as per usual by Sheridan Smith and the surprise package of Stephen Merchant as the evil Port.

This is a really well-made story of how four young men were murdered by same man after meeting up through a gay dating website. It's a tale very much of the time we live in. It seems to me there's so many young people who are prepared to just meet complete strangers through social media, without really thinking of the potential consequences.

Sheridan Smith plays the mother of the first victim and as always she puts on a first class performance. As far as I'm aware this was Stephen merchants first straight role and deserves praise for the way he portrayed the evil sadistic killer, who claimed his innocence right up to the end. Well worth a watch particularly if like me you were previously unaware of this story. 8/10.

This is the kind of cop show we should see more often. In short, Four Lives is about cops NOT solving a series of murders. In fact, they not only fail to solve the crimes, they fail to even acknowledge that crimes have been committed. They fail to recognise the bumbling culprit whose cack-handed attempts at covering his tracks are entirely successful. They fail to see the most obvious of links between the four deaths. They even fail utterly at family liaison, thereby exacerbating people's grief and distress. It's a tale of incompetence, arrogance and homophobia that some viewers might find truly staggering. But as a former journalist I can attest that the cops in Four Lives are much closer to the vast majority of real-life cops than any of the TV detectives depicted in series after series, decade after decade. Pick almost any real life murder case and you're far more likely to uncover examples of prejudiced, lazy or less-than-bright cops making endless mistakes, corrupting crime scenes, missing evidence and blindly pursuing the wrong killer. All of which makes Four Lives a long overdue exercise in balance. Well done.