‘A Cruel Love: The Ruth Ellis Story,’ About the Last Woman Hanged in Britain, Started With an Email
A Cruel Love: The Ruth Ellis Story, a four-part drama series starring Lucy Boynton (Bohemian Rhapsody, Murder on the Orient Express, The Politician) that tells the story of the last woman to be hanged in Britain from her point of view, premiered in the U.S. on streaming service BritBox this week and will hit U.K. streamer ITVX in March.
Produced by ITV Studios’ Silverprint Pictures and based on Carol Ann Lee’s biography A Fine Day for Hanging: The Real Ruth Ellis Story, the show also features Toby Jones as Ellis’ lawyer, Laurie Davidson as the lover shot and killed by Ellis, Mark Stanley, Joe Armstrong, Arthur Darvill, Juliet Stevenson, Toby Stephens, Amanda Drew and Bessie Carter. The script was written by Kelly Jones, with Angie Daniell producing the series and Lee Haven Jones directing all four episodes.
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Silverprint creative director Kate Bartlett and development director Antonia Gordon are executive producers of the series. And they came to develop the project quite unexpectedly.
“We knew she was the last one to be hanged. It’s one of those things we knew growing up,” Bartlett tells THR. “And there was the film Dance With a Stranger (starring Miranda Richardson and Rupert Everett, in 1985). But I got an email out of the blue from one of her grandsons, saying that his grandmother’s story had never been fully told. It was a totally unsolicited email. So we met up, and he talked to us about the incredibly researched, fantastic book by Carol Ann Lee, A Fine Day for a Hanging: The Real Ruth Ellis Story, which is actually being renamed A Cruel Love in its republication. We read it and auctioned it because it is an extraordinary book that tells the full story and the hidden history of the events leading up to the shooting and her shocking one-day trial.”
Gordon says that Ellis’ story leading up to her hanging in 1955 brings together different topics and genres. “Above all, we wanted to tell her story,” she tells THR. “That goes through female empowerment, through court, through the crime. Ruth was quite a trailblazer. She worked from the age of 14. She ran this very successful club. She was a single mother. Those were all things that were much more difficult back then. She was ahead of her time.”
The writer and producers made a key choice about the series’ structure. “We didn’t want to tell a linear story of A to B. Also, it’s a powerful, emotional story, and we didn’t want to make it grim and gritty,” Bartlett explains. “So we used the structure of the present-day story and the past story. In one, you get to see the vibrant, gorgeous Ruth as a successful woman. She is this charismatic, incredible woman who fell in love with David Blakely, and it was a passionate and obsessive relationship. But it was also toxic and abusive. So it was important to tell the full story.”
Gordon recalls that there were “a lot of younger members of the crew who didn’t know the story and didn’t see the film,” and they were in for a surprise. “What shocked people was how recent it was that people were hanged in the U.K., and Ruth’s hanging in 1955 then brought about the change of the law in 1957. Diminished responsibility came in (as a legal concept). Had that been available to her, she may well have had her charge reduced to manslaughter rather than murder. And then in ’65 the law was changed to get rid of capital punishment in the U.K. So, there was a lot of talk around that.”
Also notable is that in the series, Nigel Havers plays his own grandfather, Cecil Havers, the judge who sentenced Ruth Ellis to death. “Nigel, who is a British legend, played his grandfather. We weren’t sure whether he might do it, and he did,” says Gordon.
“The court episode, which is episode two, is quite shocking for the fact that every single word spoken in the court is verbatim,” Bartlett adds. “We were not allowed to change a single word, so everything that is said is from the transcripts. It’s really shocking to see how Ruth was treated and also how she sort of clammed up and didn’t help herself. So, Nigel says that his grandfather was desperately trying to see if there was a way for her to open up a bit.”
The executive producers conclude by singing the commitment of everyone who worked on the series. “We were really lucky to get such an incredible cast and crew,” says Gordon. And Bartlett concludes: “It’s been a passion piece for all of us and everyone involved.”
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