Des: What the Must Watch reviewers think

Tuesday 15 September 2020, 15:14

Every week, the Must Watch podcasters review the biggest TV and streaming shows.

This week, Hayley Campbell and Scott Bryan share their thoughts on Des.

The three part ITV drama stars David Tennant as the infamous Muswell Hill killer Dennis Nilsen - who killed at least 15 young men in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

Have you been watching it? What did you think? Leave your comments below...

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(Photo: New Pictures)

Scott says: "A fascinating portrait of a terrible man"

"When this drama was announced, I was thinking ‘Why are ITV really doing this?'

"From watching it though, what became interesting was how co-operative and open, at least at first, Dennis Nilsen was with the police after he was arrested. He was so casual in telling them what he had done. He even fired his solicitor early on in the process because he believed that he got in the way in helping the authorities.

"Then there's the fact that so many of these murders took place for years, without the police having any idea. This caused a substantial amount of guilt for them, realising how many lives could have been saved.

"Another interesting element is the role of the media in reporting and explaining all of this to the public. At what point does it go from informing them, to relishing in the horrific crime as a form of public entertainment? And you can't help thinking - ‘well, that’s essentially what ITV is doing here with this drama’.

"In short, it’s a fascinating portrait of a terrible man."

(Photo: New Pictures)

Hayley says: "I love it when David Tennant plays somebody quite evil..."

"I think David Tennant is one of the greatest actors we’ve got at the moment: he changes his posture and the way he holds his head and suddenly he looks eerily like Dennis Nilsen. Also, I love it when he plays somebody quite evil because he is so charming in real life. We saw it in Deadwater Fell and we saw it in Criminal - he’s brilliant, and I think he’s brilliant in this.

"As for the show, what I liked is that at no point do we see any blood or gore or violence. It all starts with his arrest and we hear what happened in police interviews, in interviews with the victims that got away, and through conversations with his biographer Brian Masters, who is played brilliantly by Jason Watkins. I love that it doesn’t feel sensationalistic, which is one of the things that Masters too, in his book Killing For Company, desperately wanted to avoid.

"At the time, Masters was accused of being too sympathetic towards Nilsen, and in this series they show that through people in the street shouting at him, asking ‘What it’s like to be friends with a serial killer?’

"I think his character, and the motive behind him wanting to write this book, goes quite a way to explaining what I like about true crime stories: trying to figure out what makes a person, like Nilsen, the way he is. We're not here for the blood or the gore, we want to see the psychological unpicking of this character."