TO say that three-part documentary Murdered – The Baby on The Beach (C4, Monday) was captivating is more of an understatement than saying Scotland was a little sad at waving goodbye to a couple of pandas. This true crime series was beguiling. It raised so many questions – including the matter of why we are so engrossed with true crime.
We’ll come to that, but first the storyline, a tale of medieval-level judgement acted out as religious dogma and a clueless and corrupt police force. With an entirely unexpected ending. It’s set in Ireland in 1984, a time when young pregnant women all too often became teen suicides. Abortion was illegal and the Catholic church considered unmarried pregnant women to be “fallen women”, so they were vilified.
In County Kerry, Joanne Hayes met with public opprobrium when she had an affair with a married man and became pregnant. But unusually, her family stood by Joanne and her baby daughter. Joanne carried on the affair, and became pregnant again. She gave birth at home, but the baby boy didn’t survive. She told hospital staff she’d had a miscarriage.
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Meantime, a baby boy was found a few miles away, washed up on the beach. This child had been stabbed 28 times. The Garda assumed this to be Joanne’s baby. After questioning, her family gave testimony to the fact they had all taken part in the murdering of the innocent baby, detailing the stabbing. Joanne confessed and signed a statement.
Case solved. Or was it? The Garda stood accused of forcing confessions from the family. We learned that Joanne had admitted to the crime because she’d dropped her own stillborn baby in a pond on her farm. It wasn’t until 2018, when the case was reopened that the Irish police apologised after the DNA results revealed she wasn’t the mother of the baby on the beach, whose murderer and identity was never discovered.
It’s a fascinating story. But ethical? Are we simply trying to penetrate the human condition, continually question authority – or are we hoping that seeing justice played out (eventually) offers a reassuring narrative, reinforces a sense of moral clarity, and reminds us of our own good luck?
There is no doubt whatsoever we also love tales of the supernatural, of witchcraft and adore superheroes. And it was easy to grasp the immediate attraction of Mayfair Witches (BBC2, Wednesday).
Feisty, confident, caring American neurosurgeon Rowan (Alexandra Daddario) has an argument in the operating theatre with her boss, Dr Keck. Rowan is in the right, caring deeply about her patients – but he humiliates her. Later in his office, the cruel Keck denies Rowan the chance to have her adoptive mother enrolled on a treatment programme that may just save her life. Rowan is so angered she looks inside her boss’s brain, stares hard at an artery, and it explodes.
Now, this is a talent we wish we could see more of, given the waiting list to have an MRI scan in this country. But Rowan doesn’t think that way; she is a little taken aback to discover she has the power to cause someone to suffer a fatal aneurysm.
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This vein-erupting trick happens again, just 10 minutes later, with another creepy man, this time a sexist bully, and we discover that Rowan’s unusual talent stems from her birth mother being descended from a family of witches.
So far, so good. This opener, loosely based on Anne Rice’s supernatural trilogy, suggested an uncomplicated avenging neurosurgeon, a little like forensic scientist Dexter, but with more interesting eyes. And we like Rowan even more because she’s vulnerable and in need of love, which is why she has lots of casual sex with nameless men.
But the cauldron that is the story becomes rather murky and full of daft sub-plots. When we flash back to learn of her dark past, we find that it’s not the ladies with the pointy hats and brooms that have produced a murdering, psychopathic offspring problem but it’s all the fault of a shifty shape-shifter, Lasher (Jack Huston). It had to be a man’s fault, didn’t it? Can’t decent revengeful socio-pathic witches take responsibility for their own actions?
Billy Wilder (Image: BBC)
A man who was truly mesmeric however was Hollywood writer/director Billy Wilder, featured in Billy, How Did You Do It? (BBC4, Thursday.) Right now, in London’s West End, Nicole Scherzinger is starring in Sunset Boulevard and it’s testimony to Wilder’s writing that such a storyline of human frailty and ego continues to leave audiences spellbound.
The three-part documentary featured interviews with the Austrian who identified the essence of American life, of sex and romance and greed, and placed it up on a giant screen, capturing dark reality in films such as Ace in The Hole and The Apartment and high comedy (with terror) in Some Like It Hot.
Watch this series and wonder: how could one man whose second language was English so beautifully bewitch the world of film for so long?
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