Viewers complain that they can’t hear every word being said in Rillington Place (BBC One, Tuesdays, 9pm) because the actors mumble. That might be a blessing in disguise. After all, this is the story of Reg Christie, the softly spoken serial killer who murdered at least eight women in his London flat.
Tim Roth does a superb job of portraying a shy, vain, manipulative little man whose crimes dispel the myth of a pre-1960s golden age. The decor in his Ladbroke Grove residence is almost faecal. Brown, peeling, fetid – thank God that television can’t broadcast smell. And his 1940s London, far from the cheeky Cockney paradise of Passport to Pimlico, is cold and lonely. Easy to get lost; rare to be missed. Christie surmises that his women friends who have strangely disappeared are probably lying under Blitz rubble – and the world shrugs its shoulders. “I studied medicine for a bit,” he lies to a pretty friend who suffers from catarrh. She snaps up the offer of a free consultation. This is pre-NHS, too.
