Harold Shipman: Doctor Death

Many in Britain were shocked when the police were exhuming bodies in the Manchester area with suspicion of foul play by a respected family doctor.

This was in the late 1990s and this drama from ITV was shown a few years after the events. Hence it had to tread a fine and sensitive line.

James Bolam plays Dr Frederick Shipman. A well respected GP with a small, thriving practice and a respected member of the community.

However even when the police investigate him Bolam gives a hint of the sly humour that Shipman apparently had. As well as being a serial killer this was a doctor not ready to buckle under police pressure.

James Hazeldine in one of his final roles plays the dogged policeman who is persuaded by the daughter of one of Doctor's victim's that Shipman might have a darker side.

We get an idea as to how Shipman got caught. It is a part police procedural as they forensically examine his computer. Shipman made a mistake of forging a will of one of his victim's.

We never really get an idea as to why he did it or what his motives were. It seems we might never know.

Bolam's performance is key in keeping your interest in this drama and this is a tight film without getting too exploitative.

A pretty good dramatization of how Doctor Harold Shipman finally fell under suspicion and was caught.

The production values are pretty basic but everything is well acted and the sets and locations all look pretty run of the mill and pretty realistic.

The programme takes a bit of dramatic licence obviously having to fill in many blanks.

Shipman is portrayed as charming, authoritative and highly respected and trusted. There seems little to no reason to doubt any thing he says. A few locals have doubts about the high death among his patients, many of them elderly but in excellent health and spirit. Shipman explains though that he has many patients in his surgery and that sadly death from old age does happen. Characters who do raise concerns are left looking foolish and crestfallen. Shipman continually exercises a caring bedside manner and is upheld as a pillar of the community. There's even some fantastic corpse acting.

The other main character in the story is a detective coming up for retirement who is first put onto the case when a forged will comes to light. Slowly they begin to uncover a mountain of evidence that there is a serial killer in their area. Shipman though seems able to offer a plausible defence and it's by no means certain they can prove his guilt.

The case is so famous that there's no point in trying to leave it a mystery so we know right from the beginning what he's up to. In the first scene he starts filling out the death certificate before he's even killed the victim. The drama uses a lot of actor with strong local Manchester accents to keep things feeling real.

The programme never really tries to answer the question of why he did what he did. I don't suppose we'll ever know. It seems to have had little to nothing to do with money. Nor do we know why he targeted elderly women. Was it because their deaths would be less suspicious? Was it because he had a special reason for wanting them dead. We'll never know....

Most of the acting is very good, there's just one or two extras who are truly wooden. The detective also sits down and discusses the case with a member of the public too over a drink in one scene. Pretty implausible.

Some critics will also feel maybe that this drama is exploiting an awful true story for entertainment.

I thought that James Bolam played the part of Dr Frederick Shipman very sensitively and he certainly did the best he could with what must have been a tough role.

The setting for the drama was very good and the scenes representing Christmas 1997 were very good. I think it caught the atmosphere of the whole thing very well.

The humour displayed by James Bolam was very authentic to the real Dr Shipman and the sense of theatre he displayed to some patients in his surgery was true to the real character which I guess must have been relatively easy for the actor to do as he is so familiar with playing in comedy.

I particularly liked the confrontations between Dr Shipman and the police as well as the interview scenes.

The high-light of James Bolam's acting in my opinion came when he broke down after being confronted with the computer evidence and we see him crying and clinging to his solicitor's legs. This was an excellent piece of acting.

2 hours was not long enough as there was so much that could have been covered and one got the feeling that it had been rushed a little, and maybe the programme makers had found it difficult to know just where to start.

I found it intriguing and sad as well. It made you think about the case and yes, maybe it did supply some understanding into how the tragedy came about.

A fantastic reenactment of the Shipman case. Portrayed wonderfully by everyone involved. A definite must watch if you like old British tv.

Dr Harold Shipman caused a massive stir when he was convicted and jailed for murdering 15 of his patients . " How could this have happened ? " was the public outcry , but after watching this docudrama I doubt if anyone will be any the wiser . There`s nothing fundamentally wrong about SHIPMAN except for the fact that it portrays Dr Harold Shipman as being extremely arrogant and conceited . Fine you may say , he was a mass murderer and he was , but what SHIPMAN doesn`t show is the way the general public and people in authority view doctors . Having read interviews with patients of Shipman many of them spoke about what a wonderful doctor he was and a really nice human being , many people refused to believe that a doctor in general and Shipman in particular would harm one never mind over a dozen sick patients but none of this is shown , only people who are suspicious about him at the outset and watching James Bolam`s performance you`d be hard pressed to believe anyone could be taken in by him . SHIPMAN was made with hindsight and I`ve got a really uneasy feeling it was made solely to cash in on the inquiry that concluded Friday 19th July 2002

At the inquiry it was revealed Shipman had murdered for certain 215 ( Two hundred and fifteen ) patients between May 1975 and June 1998 with another possible 45( Forty five ) murdered making him by far Britain`s most prolific serial killer. Shipman has never revealed why he did it and probably never will making any future film article or book deals pointless . Who cares why. He murdered scores of people and that`s the only fact that matters