Rillington Place on BBC1

[FlowerFairiee]

Is anyone watching?

does the film feature a dodgy abortion?

Yes, but possibly you'd have to know what an abortion is to understand the scene? Or there's scope to misunderstand it (?). I remember it being a bit oblique.

i have found out the girl was Jodie, who was in Thirteen, and LAdy Chatterley's lover as well as My Mad Fat Diary.

I can't bear how bloody defeated Ethel is in this version. So sad. In the film she seemed more unaware.

Thought both Tim Roth and Samantha Morton were excellent, she is an amazing actress, but, I kept getting annoyed because they weren't obeying blackout rules ( and a street light was on!), and she was looking at the keyboard when typing so either she wasn't a very good typist or no one remembers how to touch type! But the atmosphere was good and I jumped a mile when he shouted at her.

Yes, I noticed the lack of touch typing, tut

I'm actually moving into a very old house in a small Yorkshire village next week that looks scarily very similar to 10 Rillington Place, although not quite as grotty! Luckily I'm only renting!

Bit of trivia: Robert Elms is a presenter on BBC Radio London 10am-1). His mother worked in a tobacconist's shop, married v young at 17, she and her 20 year old husband were looking for a cheap room to rent. Christie was a customer in the shop, heard she was looking for a place so they went to look at the room.
Her husband said it gave him the creeps so they turned him down. He said he feels grateful they turned it down as he might not have been born otherwise!

London looked so dull and dreary.
Why did his wife stay with him ? She had no life.
I haven't watched the whole episode.
I had to put the subtitles on too.

London was dull and dreary in the war years and after. Tim Roth and Samantha Morton are both excellent actors and it is a gripping story, but why is it on a Tuesday night? I would have thought it was more a Sunday evening slot type of series.
This production is clearly trying to cover the whole story, not just the main events featured in the film. John Hurt played Timothy Evens in the film, and he was brilliant as the slow witted, naive young man as was Richard Attenborough as Christie.
It is a sad and shocking story that Ludovic Kennedy exposed and help change Britain forever, like Derek Bentley, the innocent sufferer of a travesty of justice.
It is strange to see that there is going to be a ITV drama about Peter Manuel, a cold blooded murderer in Scotland in the 50s, starting next week. Hardly cheerful pre Christmas viewing I would have thought!

I liked it. Brilliant acting by Roth and Morton, and agree the sets were excellent and really captured the mood of the time and area. I preferred Roth's Christie over Attenborough's because IMO the less sinister presentation gave him more credibility - just a normal bloke, doing normal bloke things, except ...

As for Ethel's character, I think she was fairly typical of a working class housewife of the period. We've got to remember that women had much fewer rights then than we have now, and it wasn't easy to leave a marriage and be independent. Plus she adored him, and it still happens today that women become besotted by bad men and stay with them. It's easy to judge Ethel from a distance of 60+ years but it was different then. You'd draw the line at covering for dodgy dealings on Christie's level but even that's not unheard of these days, either .

I really enjoyed it if enjoy is the right word I don't know anything about the case or saw the original film so coming at it with complete fresh eyes. Thought the acting was superb and the set really well done felt cold watching it. Hoping it will fill the gap after The missing finishes tonight. I think Samantha's character stays with him because she does love him plus divorce was really frowned on back then. She doesn't know what he is up to but is just imagining infidelity rather then anything more sinister.

She saw the blood in the spare room, didn't she, and covered for him about not seeing Muriel so she does know what he's like.

I think this will be really good when it gets going. It was a bit slow but I think next weeks looks better. His wife is a poor soul, but if she knew what he did and kept quiet that's awful. Creepy indeed!

I was willing the wife to stay with her brother

Both Roth and Morton were excellent and the atmosphere created was believable

Ethel stayed with him beciase she loved him and believed in her sticking to her marriage vowels regardless of her happiness the idea of getting a divorce and starting again was unthinkable for many especially for woman and working class women would not have been able to support themselves or it would have been a very difficult struggle.

I think it implies she knows about him being an abortionist and that is why she covered for him when the coat was mentioned, she knew he could be violent and had sexual preferences that disgusted her but that quite a leap to him being able to murder it being involved with the young woman's disappearance

Bagel I heard Robert Elms talking about his mum and dad I wondered if he watched it

I was tired when I watched the first episode earlier but when was it implied that Christie was an abortionist?

I don't think abortion was implied in this episode, but it probably was mentioned with regard to the Richard Attenborough film. I can remember the case as reported in the Daily Express.

Christie said he could cure catar (?) with some contraption he rigged up, using a mask and inhaling his mixture, which was really gas, that was how he made the women pass out. He told Timothy Evans that he could do abortions which is how he 'helped' Beryl Evans when she found she was pregnant again, soon after having baby Geraldine. He killed her and told Evans that it had gone wrong. He later killed Geraldine as well. A truly vile man who allowed an innocent man to hang.

I enjoyed it, thought it was atmospheric and the two leads were really good .
I haven't seen the film though I know the story.

Absolutely brilliant. The two acting leads are fantastic to watch. I know this story inside out, yet still it felt new to me. Such great production values and a script that explains so much of the back story (which is long).

The house was indeed awful by all contemporary accounts. It's no longer there. How Ethel could stand going back to him after he assaulted her, I will never understand (though her story is mostly lost in this; she had great friends in London, a good career, a loving family back in Sheffield).

Horrible true story and dreadful miscarriage of justice. I thought I'd wait and watch this in daylight, I would trust the two lead actors to act their socks off.

The director was also in charge of last year's "And Then There Were None".

Evans, the man who was hanged in the opening of this film for the murder of his wife and daughter, was from Wales, of low IQ and illiterate. Yet his confessions included words and phrases he couldn't possibly have known. The police investigation was dire and led to the deaths of at least four other women. Ludovic Kennedy examined this case.

Christie was not an abortionist. I don't really want to give anything away. However, the following are spoilers. He implied last night that he trained to be a medic. This was laughable, but an indication of his narcissistic personality. He used gas to knock out his victims under the pretence of a cure (catarrh and abortion), though his victims didn't think they were being gassed, and then raped and murdered them.

Regarding the low voice. Christie claimed that due to gassing in the first world war, he lost his voice. He always spoke in a soft tone. Normally I hate low voices but I had the subtitles on for this.

I loved the film 10 Rillington Place. Creepy as feck.

It's very atmospheric. Enjoyed the film too. I find Christie very creepy.

Not sure about Evans, though, so far. Shouldn't he have a very strong Welsh accent? (He's from near Merthyr Tydfil).