Five Daughters

After the tragic events in Ipswich in 2006 it was surprising that the BBC commissioned a drama that is still so raw in the memory in the people of that town. But the BBC handle it well in this sensitive 3 part series.

Five Daughters tells the story of the four of the five women that were murdered and how it affected they loved ones. Starting in October 2006, Tania Nicol, a 19-year-old working girl disappears and a reign of terrors starts in Ipswich. As this horrid event happened the drama tells the background story of the four other victims. Anneli Alderton (Jamie Winstone) was just released from prison after being hooked on heroin and prostitute. She wants to start a normal life, make amends with her mum (Juliet Aubrey) and become a hairdresser. Gemma Adams (Aisling Loftus) was a prostitute who was hooked on heroin, in a relationship with a man and a friend of Anneli who was attempting to get off the stuff. Annette Nicholls (Eva Birthistle) too was an addict, in trouble with local dealer and evicted from her home: but she reminds in her home. Finally there was Paula Clennell (Natalie Press), a prostitute who lives with a prostitute Rochelle (Ruth Negga) as they put their lives on the line with the impending threat stalking the town. With Ipswich in a state of terror one of the smallest police forces in the country to find the killer and the families are left in a state of grief and battle against the vultures from the media.

The easy way for a drama like this to go would have been to make it about the police investigate or the murderer. But luckily the writer Stephen Butchard decided to force on the victims and the families. He wrote a compelling teleplay that was deep in character depth, a three-dimensional portrayal of the victims who were all stuck in a horrid situation. He made an effort to portray the women in the most positive light possible. The police were shown at first be hard working but out of their depth. But they do come good and show how policing works. The film highlights the plight of street prostitutes with their addiction to drugs. It shows that the popular method to deal with prostitution would be to arrest and move the problem on: but that method does not work in the long term. It shows how desperate some women get and how they would risk they lives for money. It shows different views on the issue.

The director Philippa Lowthorpe is pretty standard for this type of TV drama. But she still does a good job, getting the best out of her actors: this is easily the best thing Jamie Winstone has ever done. She sets out to show a sensitive, down to Earth tale that takes a different approach to previous crime drama.

This tragic story of the murders of these 5 desperate girls was superbly acted by a terrific cast of brilliant actors. Excellent scripts and perfect pacing all came together to portray the trauma suffered not only by these girls and their loved ones, but the tragic suffering of victims of drug abuse. It was also a revelation of how poorly financed and understaffed the agencies are that work so hard to help girls like these and others in a variety of horrific situations.

Something though was really wrong with the poor filming, photography, sound and lighting. Not only did it let the actors down, who all did such incredible work, but it somehow made it very obvious that they were just on different film sets and at various film locations with a filmcrew that were taking shots from different angles with microphones nearby. They constantly broke the fourth wall in very negative ways. The BBC are usually so much better than this. Was it due to a low budget or just inferior camera, sound and lighting crews? Such a shame! An important series as this deserved far better treatment.

I was expecting another Whodunnit drama series which i didn't mind watching as i was bored out of my skull on a Sunday night. But this was amazing right from the word go.

Jaimie Winstone was best by far. But it was very sensitive to the Ipswich families involved and yet maintained A VERY good drama. It dealt with the motives behind prostitution very well.

In some parts i wanted to cry and others Scream at these girls for working on the streets. But it was damn well worth the watch. Its so good I think i might get it on DVD. Which would be the first mini series i ever think is worth the buy.

Spread over three nights, this BBC drama on the murders in Ipswich of five women in the run up to Christmas 2006 made for challenging and occasionally disturbing viewing. That time-proximity today to the actual events only heightens the required empathy and sympathy of the programme-makers to the subject matter and this it patently does, from the title of the piece onwards (the original tabloid coverage of the killings unfeelingly focused on the murdered women all being prostitutes, dehumanising the victims at a stroke).

For me, probably like most UK residents, the two most remembered TV images from the original investigation were firstly the CCTV images of one of the young women heading into the red light district on the local train, preening herself, readying herself for her "work" and just as tragically the fact that another of the victims was actually interviewed by national TV (her back to camera, obviously) before being killed the next night.

Boldly and justifiably, the drama makes no concession to the murderer at all, concentrating wholly on the lives and desperate motivations of the women themselves. There's zero sensationalism either, with the murders themselves only suggested by the killer's car ominously approaching the victims at night-time. He's duly caught at the end, but in no sense was this a conventional crime drama.

That said, I did personally find the candid insight into the drug addicted, poverty driven lives of the prostitutes disturbing and hard to stomach at times and occasionally the dialogue tended to be, although only very occasionally, maudlin and over-ripe. The ensemble acting was laudably grounded in realism, although not wholly consistent, if anything, I appreciated more the actors playing the over-run police service than those portraying either the victims or their families.

My biggest qualm however was that the story opened with one girl already murdered with no background story at all to her situation, making me wonder if her family denied the producers access to her information. For me this did however imbalance the whole, almost reducing the drama to "four daughters" but all told, this was a commendably brave approach to a difficult subject, treating its difficult central, characters by and large with honesty and dignity, as they deserved.

This three-part series was just broadcast by TVOntario and gave a compelling, well-acted, and probably realistic account of what happened just a few years ago in a town that I wouldn't have imagined had a "red light" area (I'm recalling a TV production of "East of Ipswich" I saw years ago). The rough and suddenly dangerous lives of street prostitutes, some quite young and even presentable-looking, who walk the streets to feed a drug habit was well-done, as were their individual backgrounds and the difficulty they had keeping off substance abuse. I remember news reports of the time saying that public and official (including Prime Minister Blair) reactions to the killings were sympathetic to the victims (reaction to the victims of the "Yorkshire Ripper" was, reportedly, less so), and here the police are portrayed as compassionate if somewhat overwhelmed by the situation. The actual killer is apprehended toward the end of the third part; there's no explanation to his motive, only that he himself frequented--and finally murdered--streetwalkers. If anything, this drama recalled "Band of Gold," set in an even rougher milieu and with some of the same actors (David Bradley and one of the police officers) involved.One note of hope: the conclusion of the drama says that some of the girls were able to straighten out and leave the dangerous streets.