A film starring James Bolam as Harold Shipman was broadcast on the ITV network on July 9th 2002.
A group of people, including police officers and family members of Shipman's victims were given a preview of this broadcast a few days before it was shown. Most people condemned the film, not just for its content, but for the insensitivity shown by the producers in broadcasting the film only weeks before publication of Dame Smith's findings into how many patients Shipman had killed. The majority view was that, if the film was to be shown at all, it should not be shown until at least after the report of the public inquiry had been published.
I was in no mood to watch the film on the night of the broadcast and so videod it for veiwing the following day.
I found myself unable to watch the film, except in 10-minute bites. This was in part due to the content of the film — shots of Harold and Primrose at a fund-raising event, immediately made me press the STOP button on my remote.
The film was badly made and with a few exceptions, the acting was wooden. Many of the people portrayed were charicatures of the real people concerned. I was annoyed that this was not a better-made film.
There were some excellent documentaries made and books published in the months following the trial. These were made or written in the spirit of presenting the facts dispassionately. This film re-creates some of the same scenes given in those documentaries, but tries to dramatize them in a way that fails.
It seems to me that the film was made too hastily and for the wrong reasons.
| A new domain name has now been established at
http://www.geraldengland.org.uk/. Much of the work
presently found here will be transferred to the new site over the next few months.
The following sections will NOT be transferred:
|| Aabye's Baby || Arrabella the Arachnid || Harold Fred Shipman || Purple Patch Convention || Tameside on the Internet || Yorkshire Dialect || Zimmer-zine || It is expected that this site will close down around the end of 2005. |