It was a brave move to create a BBC drama out of the story of a vile, predatory paedophile, said Carol Midgley in The Times.
But the makers of The Reckoning – a new four-part drama about Jimmy Savile – did a good job. It's a "respectful, impressive piece of work", and Steve Coogan is brilliant in the main role.
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
'Did we really need it?'
As a drama, The Reckoning works well enough, said Lucy Mangan in The Guardian, but did we really need it? Netflix only recently produced a very thorough, three-hour documentary about Savile. To justify going over this story again, you'd need to add something of value. This drama just recounts what we already know, while speculating that Savile's predilection stemmed from the fact that, as an unwanted seventh child, he hadn't been loved enough by his mother.
Worse still is the way the drama subtly passes the buck, said Camilla Long in The Sunday Times. A whole episode is devoted to showing how close Savile was to Margaret Thatcher. Much is also made of his Catholicism. By contrast, the BBC – one of the only places where people actually knew about Savile's abuses – escapes lightly.
'True crime fodder'
The broadcaster's shameful decision to shelve Newsnight's exposé of Savile shortly after his death is only mentioned in a postscript. If the BBC commissioned this drama in order to offer a full accounting of its failures, it has come up short, said Robin Aitken in The Daily Telegraph.
But you can't help feeling that, for all the high-minded rhetoric about honouring the victims, this is a lurid story told mainly for ratings. "We don't need Savile served up as true crime fodder – least of all by the organisation that nurtured him, groomed him for stardom and inflicted him on the entire country."
-
Political cartoons for February 7Cartoons Saturday’s political cartoons include an earthquake warning, Washington Post Mortem, and more
-
5 cinematic cartoons about Bezos betting big on 'Melania'Cartoons Artists take on a girlboss, a fetching newspaper, and more
-
The fall of the generals: China’s military purgeIn the Spotlight Xi Jinping’s extraordinary removal of senior general proves that no-one is safe from anti-corruption drive that has investigated millions
-
Nan Goldin: The Ballad of Sexual Dependency – an ‘engrossing’ exhibitionThe Week Recommends All 126 images from the American photographer’s ‘influential’ photobook have come to the UK for the first time
-
American Psycho: a ‘hypnotic’ adaptation of the Bret Easton Ellis classicThe Week Recommends Rupert Goold’s musical has ‘demonic razzle dazzle’ in spades
-
Properties of the week: houses near spectacular coastal walksThe Week Recommends Featuring homes in Cornwall, Devon and Northumberland
-
Josh D’Amaro: the theme park guru taking over DisneyIn the Spotlight D’Amaro has worked for the Mouse House for 27 years
-
Melania: an ‘ice-cold’ documentaryTalking Point The film has played to largely empty cinemas, but it does have one fan
-
Nouvelle Vague: ‘a film of great passion’The Week Recommends Richard Linklater’s homage to the French New Wave
-
Wonder Man: a ‘rare morsel of actual substance’ in the Marvel UniverseThe Week Recommends A Marvel series that hasn’t much to do with superheroes
-
Is This Thing On? – Bradley Cooper’s ‘likeable and spirited’ romcomThe Week Recommends ‘Refreshingly informal’ film based on the life of British comedian John Bishop
