Timothy Spall as hangman Albert Pierrepoint and Mary Stockley as murderess Ruth Ellis.
Herald rating: 4 out of 5
Conceived as a television film, this recreation of the life and times of hangman Albert Pierrepoint is both unfalteringly grim and mesmerisingly watchable.
Spall brings to eerily precise life Britain's most prolific executioner, who dropped an estimated 433 men and 17 women through the gallows' trapdoor. He presents
the executioner as a perfectly judged blend of working-class pride in his work and the quasi-military pomp implied by his position, a man who calculates drop lengths on the basis of bodyweight to do his job efficiently but never excessively.
But he also shows us a man who never loses sight of his victims' humanity. "She's innocent now," he says to an assistant as he lovingly bathes a corpse. "She's paid her price." And we witness him hit the roof when, contracted to dispatch about 200 Nazis after the Nuremberg trials, he is told there are not enough coffins to go around.
The film as a whole is more solid than inspired, but in creating a character of radiant individuality Spall lifts it far above historical reconstruction. Here's a man who knows his place - he calls his employers "Mr" and accepts they do not return the compliment. But he knows his rights too: the incident that precipitates his resignation is one that offends his deeply ingrained sense of fair play.
It's entirely possible that Pierrepoint was having a change of heart by 1956 when he quit; later in life he would condemn capital punishment. And it's part of Spall's genius that he manages to communicate a sense of ambivalence in a character whose actions are so unflappably single-minded.
The climactic event, which involves a man called Tish (Marsan), embellishes the historical record, which is not necessarily a bad thing, but it adds a note of forced sentiment to a film largely free of it. Abetted by Stevenson as his wife, Anne - a faintly chilling mixture of loyal wife and Lady Macbeth - Spall gives us a cinematic character to savour and a clear-eyed view of the past. Not exactly a laugh a minute but still highly recommended.
Cast: Timothy Spall, Juliet Stevenson, Eddie Marsan
Director: Adrian Shergold
Running time: 90 mins
Rating: M, content may disturb
Screening: Rialto, Bridgeway
Verdict: Timothy Spall is brilliant in a mesmerising film about Britain's most prolific hangman
