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Max mentioned watching this early in the week. I gave it a viewing on playback.

If anyone is expecting a horror thriller going into all the detail of how Rose and Fred West murdered their victims then this isnt the programme for you. It starts with Fred's arrest and it is seen from the point of view of Janet Leach, the trainee social worker who finds herself parachuted into the horrific, bizarre, alternative world of the Wests.

Emily Watson is brilliant as Leach as is Dominic West as Fred. What I found really unsettling was how funny it was in an uncomfortable way. As far as I know, Fred West's actual words from police interviews are used in those sections of the film.

There is one point where Fred is rambling on about whether it was 8 or 9 additional killings that he wanted to admit to in police interview. After a lot of toing and froing, Janet Leach suggests they put down 8 or 9 approximately. It got across the sheer banality of murder in this instance.

Worth a watch. Second episode next week.

CHeers
D

Yes, I too thought that West's matter of factness was kind of comic, delivered as it was in a comic accent. That isn't meant to offend people - remember Banksy put up a motorway sign near Bristo 'Please don't laugh at our accents'.

There were other details such as the ice saw and the garden scenes which were similar in effect to the 'approx' sequence.

In my time i've read books on Dennis Neilsen and the Moor Murderers - not sensationalist, meticulously researched pieces - but I don't think I could read Gordon Burn's 'Happy Like Murderers'. Too bleak. On the evidence of Appropriate Adult the West's created a world in which murder was the preferred way of problem solving.

Yeah there was the bit about the trip into the countryside where Fred waxes lyrical about the joys of the countryside, the air, the smells etc.

Before the detective brings him down with "Fred, we are not here for a day out, it's purpose is to find where you buried your former wife".

Unbelievable in one way, but still credible.

CHeers
D

What was very distrurbing was how Fred West was just talking normally and then mentioned about cutting his daughter's legs and head off so she could be fitted into a box. He was speaking like it was just an ordinary thing to do. Very well written and directed, in the sense that the viewer fells this is an ordinary scene then it moves into really horrific territory and you are left feeling the real gravity of the crimes he and his wife committed. I remember when all this happened in 1994 and the endless news coverage it got. Janet Leach apparently worked with the producers on this to make it as true as possible.

Exactly.

But even when he was describing cutting off his daughter's head there was some uncomfortable humour. WHen he said he had to close Heather's eyes because no-one would want their daughter to be looking at them while they cut their head off.

CHeers
D