Rillington Place: anyone watching?

I've just remembered that we used to have 'Intelligence Tests' during the last year at primary school.

I don't think any of us realised what that actually meant - we thought it was all part and parcel of being in the final year!

And Deedaa, David Blakley her victim had caused the miscarriage by hitting her in the stomach. I think Ellis was hanged because she was a peroxide , nightclub worker of easy virtue , more of a crime than murder in the fifties , today I doubt she would have even had a long prison sentence, poor woman

Even rewatching some of this on Gogglebox was chilling!!

Bad mouth (ing) was first used in 1941 according to google, couldn't find when new-build first occurred. Interesting.

That use in 1941 was James Thurber in the Saturday Evening Post - an American publication headquartered in Indianapolis, not anywhere in the UK.

It seems to have come from West Africa, via African Americans and/or the Caribbean, into the general American language. While it is possible that it was used by some people in the UK at that time, Tim's mother doesn't seem a likely person to have been saying it. She may have had links to African Americans or GI's, of course.

And there again, how on earth would the scriptwriters know which words she actually used?

What she may had said I don't know, what she was most likely to say - you've been calling her over.

Pardon?

calling her over means bad mouthing her

Oh, I see - never heard it used with that meaning before! Trouble is, neither would the rest of the viewers apart from South Wales ones...so it wouldn't really have worked.

No it wouldn't have worked Ana, very South Wales at that time, still is with many

Ah yes Elegran my mistake.

I've just realised that the best thing about this programme is the lack of background music! All that horror and suspense generated by a good script and fine actors and no need to bump it up with scary music, I wish other producers would take the hint.

Poor, poor man. "Christie done it!". Poor Timothy .

How could Christies wife to along with it?

Go along

I said the same wot but I assume she was scared of him. Also why did he never admit to killing Geraldine.
Poor Tim indeed. He was pardoned but the conviction was sadly never quashed it said.

Well she paid the ultimate price for keeping her mouth shut didn't she ? Very good docu/drama

I agree, no music made it more chilling

I read today , the brother of Beryl Evans wants her body to be exhumed
so he can be buried with her , she is buried in a RC cemetery and he wants them buried together in a .jewish cemetery

I thought it was excellently done. Wonder why the conviction was never quashed? Wasn't it Ludovic Kennedy who fought to get Timothy Evans a pardon? Why did he need to fight, surely it was obvious by then that Timothy Evans was innocent.

Yes to the lack of music. Very suspenseful without it.

Perhaps admitting to the murder of the baby was a step too far even for Christie? Or maybe he wanted to leave enough doubt that people would continue to believe Evans was responsible?

The conviction was never quashed because it was never certain that Evans didn't kill the baby. (according to Wiki).

Wot I imagine she was stuck with him because she was a working class woman of her generation and had no financial independence.

AjayF Unfortunately radio and television scripts are full of these verbal anachronisms these days. Some Edwardian WW1 drama had someone being taken to A/E. Appallingly lazy script writing. A rant for another day there.

Yes I agree Nelliemoser, women were still quite subservient even then and she seemed in thrall to Christie.
It was very well done, Tim Roth underplayed excellently.

It was really very good wasn't it, excellent acting by all concerned, the poor bewildered Timothy, and the eerily watchable Christie, the tension was there throughout. Enjoyed.