A Confession

The series started a little slowly and I worried it was going to be a bit by the numbers but it definitely got better. The best writing and performances were around the families. Jeff Pope took us into their worlds and in truth I wanted more of it and less of the cops!

ITV have a tenancy to make all their crime dramas about the same thing - middle aged, white male cop fights for the truth, to catch the killer even if it means he has to swim against the tide. And this was no exception - the same story again.

But the cutaways to the families and the sensitive story telling in these areas made this one a cut above.

Also Joe Absolom was outstanding as the killer trying to evade detection. Watch it for the family stories which I won't spoiler her, the nuanced writing around their very different battles and for a stand out award worthy perfomance from Absolom.

A confession is a gritty six part drama, telling the real life crimes of Christopher Halliwell, the murders of Sian and Becky.

The fact that the crimes are still relatively recent, I found there to be a certain sensitivity in the way the story was told, it's presented as factual, rather then sensational, it's dramatic, but not stretched beyond belief.

I wondered how they could stretch this show over six episodes, but they do, it goes from the crime to the events of the trial.

You will learn the ins and outs of PACE and its right procedures.

Terrific performances, Martin Freeman and Imelda Staunton especially are both superb. It contains some real life footage.

The main talking point, the camera work, initially it irritated me, jumping about and zooming, after a few episodes I stopped noticing.

It's excellent. 9/10.

I agree that the idiot who came up with shaky camera work should be drummed out of film and I thought it had gone the way of the dodo but the negative reviews here are overdoing it.

There is some very good, understated, acting here. I also suspect some of the styling is intended to reflect the era.

It's also a long time since I've seen a film with the trailer "This is a true story" as opposed to the fatuous "Based on true events". I recall the story and this appears fairly accurate.

I agree, it's not as well made as it could be, but it's a lot better than some of the reviews here make out.

Only watched 3 episodes so far. Suspenseful. Enjoyable. I don't know the real story, which is good. No spoilers. Normally, I hate any shows or movies that use hand-held cameras. In this case the show was so good I hadn't even realized that hand-held were used until I read the horde of crabby reviews that all focussed on that. Can't wait to binge watch the last 3 episodes.

This is superb television drama. Don't know what the reviews talking about the camera motion are talking about-didn't notice a problem. Martin Freeman performance was outstanding as I expected and Imelda Staunton's performance as the untiring mother of the victim was truly award winning in every way. I thoroughly enjoyed this series and highly recommend it.