“Now on ITV1 Granada, with scenes that may offended
some viewers, it’s Bloody Murder”
A corpse being carried up from a basement, a drowning,
a violent stabbing, a strangulation, a man pissing himself as he is hung. Not the kind of images you’d expect to see in
the opening titles of a factual, regional TV show, but then again Bloody Murder
wasn’t your average factual, regional TV show.
Allow me to take you down a very dark rabbit hole.
Never heard of Bloody Murder? Don’t worry you’re undoubtedly
in the majority there. Seemingly never broadcast
outside of the North West region, never repeated, and now more than a decade
and a half old, it is a programme that has left only the faintest of footprint
on the internet. Chances are this is the
most anyone has, or will ever, write about the programme.
Remember all those ‘True Crime’ magazines that
people’s grandmothers tended to pass on to each other. Y’know the type whose colourful covers full
of scantily clad models and sensationalist ballyhoo in no way prepared younger,
impressionable eyes for a parade of hack articles about true crime, headshots
of serial killers and smudgy, poorly reproduced photos of murder scenes, all
immortalised on the cheapest paper possible.
Bloody Murder is Television’s heir apparent to such mags. Bloody Murder’s stock in trade was dramatised
recreations of historic murder cases that took place in the North West of
England. For a low-budget local TV show
its timeline was cast ambitiously wide, the oldest cases to receive the Bloody
Murder treatment date back to the Victorian era, the most recent the
1980s. It’s likely that Bloody Murder
was commissioned as part of ITV’s commitment to ‘local interest’ programmes,
but any veneer of respectability falls away fast. There was a thick air of exploitation about
Bloody Murder. Going out in a slot just
after the 10 o’clock news, this was post-pub entertainment for viewers looking
for blood, guts, cheap laughs and morbid thrills- and Bloody Murder delivered on
all counts.
Two series of Bloody Murder were made between 2004 and
2005. Executive producer Eamonn O’Neal
has sired countless local TV shows, including some T&A programming during
the Granada Men and Motors era, as well as being a local TV and Radio
personality in his own right. I only
caught the tail end of the first series of Blood Murder, so my memories of it
have become rather fuzzy. One episode dealt
with the crimes of Buck Ruxton an Indian physician who murdered and dismembered
his common law wife, then went on tour, disposing of her body parts throughout
the North, in a failed attempt to cover his tracks. The bathroom dismemberment remained the
episode’s main focus, its blatantly phoney, yet lurid depiction being reminiscent
of Herschell Gordon Lewis’ Blood Feast, complete with stage blood running down
the walls and fake severed limbs being waved in the audience’s faces. Another episode featured a botched robbery of
a Northern cinema, which left one unfortunate employee with his brains
splattered about the projection room.
Present in the cast of one episode was Maxton G Beesley, comedy
impressionist and regular in Cliff Twemlow movies. Although my encounters with the first series
of Bloody Murder were brief, any programme that waved severed limbs in the
audiences’ faces and kept Twemlow’s old gang in employment can’t be all
bad. So when Bloody Murder returned for
a second run in 2005, I was ready and waiting with a new fangled DVD recorder
to hand.
Host of both series, and a quintessential part of the
Bloody Murder experience is actor Lee Boardman.
Resembling a young version of an older Hywel Bennett, and usually found
sporting a ‘bulldog chewing on a wasp’ facial expression, Boardman was at the
time burnt into the public’s imagination as psychotic drug dealer Jez Quigley
in the long running soap opera Coronation Street. Quigley had quickly propelled Boardman to the
status of TV’s ‘the man you love to hate’, something Bloody Murder was keen to
capitalise on. The unspoken truth
between Bloody Murder’s host and the audience is that Boardman is basically
‘doing’ Quigley again in his host role here, but presumably they couldn’t get
the okay from Coronation Street bosses to revive the character. Even so, the connection does give Bloody
Murder the status of an ultra-violent, unofficial Coronation Street
spin-off.
By all accounts Boardman is one of the nicest guys in
the biz, as such you are left feeling a little guilty about attributing some of
the Bloody Murder host’s shtick to the actor himself, when he is clearly ‘in
character’. The persona of Boardman’s
host is pitched somewhere between Tod Slaughter and a 1970s Working Men’s Club
Comedian. Boardman recalls Slaughter’s
leering ghoul, warning sensitive audience members when they are about to see a
murder or disembowelling, then gleefully revelling in the deed itself. Boardman also pulls no punches when it comes
to brutal, put down humour- murderers, murder victims, passing simpletons, the
deaf, people with posh accents- no one escapes Boardman’s venom. Boardman is like the type of club comedian
who zones in on a particular audience member and decides to make the poor
bastard the laughing stock of the whole room.
Throughout both series, Boardman does nothing to reign in his strong Northern
accent, indicating that no one involved in the programme expected it to play
outside of the region. Bloody Murder was
made with thick skinned, Northern sensibilities in mind.
Boardman is Bloody Murder’s dark heart and soul, when
he isn’t onscreen, he is busy narrating.
Actually acting in a Bloody Murder episode appears to have been a
thankless task. On the rare occasions
that the characters have dialogue, its Boardman’s narrator that speaks it, with
the actors’ delivery buried in the sound mix.
Effectively reducing the Bloody Murder casts to mannequins in a true
crime exhibition. Boardman is why you
came back to Bloody Murder though, just to see how sick, twisted and inappropriate
the ghost of Jez Quigley would get this week.
Every episode guarantees several ‘did he really just say that’
moments. Woe be unto him foolish enough
to try and defend Bloody Murder against charges of bad taste.
“He’s 73, deaf, and missing a slate. She admits to 47, and talks too much and
drinks too much” is Boardman’s no-nonsense assessment of Alfred and Louisa
Merrifield, the subjects of the episode “Where there’s a will” (broadcast
8/8/05). A pair of con-artists who
drifted around Blackpool in the 1950s, if you were to compare the Merrifields
to sitcom characters, she’d be a domineering, battleaxe in the Nora Batty vein,
while the doddery, incontinent, Alfred would be Walter from Nearest and
Dearest. The Merrifields con was
befriending the elderly, setting themselves up as home help, then robbing and
exploiting them until they were eventually found out and moved on to a new
mark. Their latest, intended victim, Mrs
Ricketts however turns out to be every bit Louisa Merrifield’s equal when it
comes to being a conniving schemer.
While Louisa sets about her usual business of half heartedly cleaning
the house, constantly stealing and helping herself to the shopping, Ricketts
feigns illness, takes to her bed and treats the pair like dogsbodies, stringing
them along with the promise that the Merrifields will be written into her will.
As with Pete Walker films, the real horror here isn’t
so much the violence but the all too real, all too believable human cruelty
that surrounds it. Louisa Merrifield and
Mrs Ricketts inexplicably bond over the mutual satisfaction they get from
humiliating, mocking and verbally abusing poor simpleton Alfred, whilst working
him to the bone. Bloody Murder has an
undeniable knack for evoking, despicable, noxious personalities like Louisa Merrifield
and Mrs Ricketts, but has a habit of embodying rather than distancing itself
from their meanness. Boardman’s host
joining in on Louisa and Ricketts’ sadistic fun, by adding to the insults that
come Alfred’s way, which includes ‘bog brain’, ‘plonker’ and ‘you stupid old
halfwit’. Bloody Murder’s idea of light
relief for this episode revolves around the fact that Alfred Merrifield had a
strange hobby. The man’s only pleasure
in life, so it seems, was found in other people’s toilets. Alfred is barely through the door of Mrs
Ricketts, before he is ecstatically admiring her toilet, singing the praises of
its flush and porcelain work. In the
episode’s intended big laugh, Alfred gets so carried away over Mrs Ricketts’
toilet that his hearing aid drops down the toilet forcing Alfred to retrieve it
and place the now soggy hearing aid back into his ear. Naturally, host Boardman swoops down on
Alfred’s toilet fetish like a hawk “he spent allot of time with bogs did Alfie”
explains Boardman “after years working in a bog making factory, and now hours
everyday using one...or trying too”.
Louisa Merrifield is in her element, drinking Mrs
Ricketts out of house and home, and smugly looking on as Ricketts tears into
her husband, saving Merrifield from doing that job herself. Ricketts though signs her own death warrant
when during her verbal outburst at Alfred, she lets slip that the Merrifields
can easily be written out of her will, and that the pair think that they “can
get away with murder”. Soon after Louisa
sends the dutiful Alfred to Manchester, to both fix his hearing aid and to buy
some rat poison.
By Bloody Murder standards poisoning is a relatively
tame and bloodless way for someone to meet their maker. Never let it be said though that this series
doesn’t live up to its title. The
programme has to be bloody and there has to be a murder, those are the series’
ground rules. If the murder itself isn’t
all that bloody, the show’s Plan B tends to be to show you a character’s
autopsy instead. Where there’s a Will’s
big gross-out moment then belongs to Mrs Rickett’s autopsy, depicted in such an
over the top manner that its effect is alternatively disgusting and laughable.
In what has to be the sloppiest autopsy ever performed
in the North West, two masked pathologists hack away at Ricketts’ remains with
large kitchen knives as blood runs down the walls behind them. In cheapskate Bloody Murder fashion the scene
looks like it was shot in the cubical of a public toilet. “There aren’t any bits that missed the
pathologist’s knife” gloats Boardman “you name it and they’ll have a good
butchers at it”. To prove his point, the
scene just goes on and on, as the masked duo fondle chunks of flesh and slice
them into tiny pieces. It’s as if a
Bloody Murder crew member was in the midst of preparing a meal and hit upon the
idea that it could double as a gore scene in the programme itself...by the looks
of it someone was having a steak stew that night.
As for Alfred, he is one of few Bloody Murder subjects
to receive something of a happy ending.
While wife Louisa is found guilty of murder and hung, Alfred is judged
too incompetent to have committed the crime and is set free. Alfred even managed to wrangle part of Mrs
Ricketts estate away from her daughters (actions which make you question
whether the comic, imbecilic portrayal of him here is really accurate) and
cashed in on his notoriety further by selling the rights to his image for £500
to Blackpool’s chamber of horrors waxwork exhibition. Host Boardman can’t resist one last twist of
the knife “I don’t know why they bothered making a model, for 500 smackers he’d
have stood there himself for eight hours a day, except for an hour or two now
and again when he was in the bog”.
In 1950s Manchester it could be difficult to get to
the top, especially if you were simultaneously playing bottom. Just ask Peter Reyn-Bardt, the gay about town
in Bloody Murder episode ‘The Skull’ (broadcast 25/7/05). A high flying BOAC public relations man
Reyn-Bardt finds that his homosexuality and promiscuity is raising eyebrows
amongst his bosses, and costs him a promotion.
Reyn-Bardt is effectively told to go straight or get
out. Apparent salvation comes in the
form of the fake accented but impressively long of name Malika De Frenandes De
Gonzales Dolly Vara, a waitress at one of the gay bars that Reyn-Bardt
frequents, who agrees to a sham marriage in return for cash handouts and BOAC
travel perks. Malika is soon helping herself
to Reyn-Bardt’s salary, free foreign travel and champagne, the latter
occasionally causing her to forget her mess of a put-on Spanish accent and
curiously revert to an Irish one. Malika
also enjoys her horizontal pleasures, not that her closeted hubby could care
less. “He didn’t mind the fortnight in France
with a fireman, nor a dirty weekend with a copper in Copenhagen” leeringly
notes Boardman. Reyn-Bardt himself is no
slouch in that department. Bloody
Murder’s idea of depicting the 1950s gay lifestyle is to have an actor playing
Reyn-Bardt’s boyfriend walk naked through the living room to pick up the
morning post, while Reyn-Bardt sits and drinks tea. Inanimate objects and camera placement carefully
masks the actor’s genitalia and buttocks, in an unintentionally comic manner
that recalls coy nudist movies.
“Not many men manage looking happy and being
married...even if they’re straight” quips Boardman. Soon Malika’s drunken indiscretions, and
demands for more and more money drive both Reyn-Bardt over the edge, and a
kitchen knife into Malika’s body...over and over. The gore for gore’s sake ethos of Bloody
Murder dictates that her murder is shown several times throughout the
programme, each time edited in a different way.
It’s as if the programme makers couldn’t bring themselves to throw away
a single frame of their blood splattered actors.
After killing Malika, the task of disposing of her
body leads Reyn-Bardt to grab the nearest axe.
The prospect of an onscreen dismembering allows Boardman’s host the opportunity
to taunt his more sensitive audience members “that’s right...shut your
eyes”. There are moments in Bloody
Murder episodes where characters behave so dumb that you suspect audiences
would never buy into it, were this to be served up to them as a work of
fiction. Take the senior rambler who
stumbles upon Reyn-Bardt’s attempt to dispose of Malika’s body. After chopping her up, Reyn-Bardt then tries
to burn her in his backyard. Only to be
spotted by the rambler whose appearance immediately sparks derision from
Boardman “the oldest boy scout in the land”.
Caught unawares, still covered in Malika’s blood, and with her
dismembered body burning away in front of him, Reyn-Bardt manages to concoct a
tall-tale about how his German shepherd died and that he is merely “burning his
old dog”. Incredibly, the old timer buys
the story and goes on his way. Freaking
out at nearly being caught red handed, Reyn-Bardt decides to head out to Lindow
Moss to bury what Boardman sniggeringly refers to as “bits of barbequed
spouse”.
Alas, Reyn-Bardt’s efforts fail to save his career,
with Malika out of the picture Reyn-Bardt’s sexuality once again comes under scrutiny. “BOAC don’t want abnormal people” complains
his boss “better consider your future, Reyn-Bardt, and find some line of work
where it’s normal to be abnormal”.
Whatever sympathy you have for Reyn-Bardt quickly
evaporates once this Bloody Murder episode jumps to 1982. Catching up with an aged and hardened
Reyn-Bardt after he has just done a stretch in prison for gross indecency. Reyn-Bardt sows the seed for his own
destruction by bragging to the other sex offenders about murdering his
wife. The years in-between haven’t been
kind to Reyn-Bardt, as Boardman tactlessly points out “he’d turned into a
droopy old man, anything that could droop had drooped” (how the actor playing
the older Reyn-Bardt must have loved that particular Boardman
observation). The early 1980s also finds
Reyn-Bardt in a cocky mood, faced with the allegation of murder by detectives,
Reyn-Bardt merely lays down the challenge “prove it”. He might have gotten away with it, had it not
been for that pesky Elvis impersonator.
Enter Dave ‘Elvis’ Duckworth, who supplements his
career as an Elvis impersonator by digging up peat from Lindow Moss, and
accidentally uncovers Malika’s skull in the process. In a perfect world, you get the impression
that the makers of Bloody Murder would have preferred to use well known music
as a darkly humorous commentary on the onscreen action. A local TV budget, of course, meant that this
would never be, and instead the programme is forced to merely name check a few
song lyrics instead. Duckworth mumbles a
few lines of his hero’s Heartbreak Hotel “well, I’m so lonely, I’ll be so
lonely, i could die” which creepily anticipates him unearthing Malika’s
skull. The sight of which causes him to
faint, Elvis has left the building.
Elsewhere, the investigating detective taunts Rein-Bardt with a few
lines from The Beatles’ When I’m Sixty-Four “will you still need me, will you
still feed me, when I’m...” before reuniting him with his wife’s skull, causing
Rein-Bardt to confess all, and allowing the programme to give yet another
flashback to her murder.
The trial scene in this episode must have proved an
odd acting assignment for Lee Boardman.
An actor playing a QC gives a lengthily summing up of the case, but as
per usual for Bloody Murder its Boardman’s voice who we hear delivering the
dialogue, with Boardman putting on a fake well-to-do accent, breaking with his Northern
hardman persona. Boardman in his role as
host then returns to the narration to complain about the QC “what is this
boring voice going on about”. Imagine
having to pretend to be annoyed and irritated by your own voice. There is one last twist in the tale however,
when it is revealed that the skull that the Elvis impersonator unearthed turns
out to belong to a woman from the fifth century. “Malika was still out there somewhere...probably
helping grow tomatoes with some peat in some old couples’ greenhouse”
speculates Boardman with morbid relish.
If there ever could be considered such a thing as a
‘fun’ episode of Bloody Murder its ‘Lambs to the Slaughter’ (broadcast
1/8/05). Its anti-heroes’ mixture of
terrible luck, stupidity and incompetence effortlessly provides comedy material
for Boardman to gorge on. “Laurel and
Hardy take to crime...only this time the big one is the dimwit” is Boardman’s introduction
to Gwynne Owen Evans and Peter Allen.
I’m not sure I remember a Laurel and Hardy film involving gay sex,
murder, sheep rustling or that ended with Stan and Ollie being hung, but
whoever wrote this episode of Bloody Murder seemed tickled pink by the Laurel
and Hardy comparison, and has Boardman labour the point throughout the
episode. It is hard to deny though that
Evans and Allen (not exactly as catchy as Laurel and Hardy, is it?) do find
themselves in a fine mess. None of
Bloody Murder’s subjects are what you’d call criminal masterminds- no guest
villains in an episode of Columbo are this bunch- but even in the underachieving
Bloody Murder school, Evans and Allen are the class clowns. Allen is big, married and none too bright “he
might have had all his chairs at home, but he was a stool or two short” jokes
Boardman. Evans is single, fancies
himself as the epitome of 1960s cool (right down to wearing sunglasses at
night) and is considered a genius by Allen, on account of the fact that Evans
told him so. In reality Evans appears to
have been a small time hustler with a hair-trigger temperament when it came to
the touchy subject of his own sexuality.
Allen lays down his dunce credentials early on, by bringing his wife
Mitch and their newborn child along on an obviously nefarious night time excursion,
masterminded by Evans. Allen considers
this a fun filled, big day out for his family, despite Evans pointing out that
it is the middle of the night and there is nothing to see. While Allen and his family doze off in the
car, Evans knocks on the door of one of his old tricks, smoking jacket wearing
bachelor Jack. Arriving with his hand
out for £100, it soon becomes clear that Evans will have to begrudgingly throw
some gay fella business Jack’s way.
“Shall I snog you out here or in the warm” moans Evans on Jack’s
doorstep. A shot of the two men
ascending Jack’s staircase anticipates a night of passion “there’s more than
three steps to heaven in this house” says Boardman, punning on an Eddie Cochran
song from the time.
After services are rendered, Jack turns tightwad, brushing
aside Evans’ demands for cash, and forcing Evans to swipe Jack’s watch
instead. Calling in the heavy mob, Evans
lets Allen into the house for an impromptu robbery. Jack lunges at Allen, only for the younger
man to get the better of him. Soon Jack
is lying battered and blooded at the bottom of the stairs. While Evans ransacks the house, Allen
repeatedly knocks Jack unconscious. After sending Allen back to his car, Evans
turns murderous, stabbing Jack in an outburst of either homophobia or
self-hatred, telling his victim “I’m not like you Jack, I’m normal”.
Out of the blue, Bloody Murder suddenly turns into a
jaunty 1960s road movie as Evans and Allen hit the road with Allen’s wife Mitch
and her baby (in reality the couple went on the run with their two newborn
children, but presumably Bloody Murder’s budget would only stretch to the one bambino). Generic Merseybeat style music –the type you
tend to find in cheap documentaries about The Beatles that can’t afford actual
Beatles music- plays on the soundtrack, as the foursome speed around the
moorlands in their 1960s car. The entire
sequence resembles a malicious spoof of ITV’s then popular ‘Heartbeat’
series. “Forget the heartbeat” Boardman
tells us “this is the Merseybeat”, before we cut to Evans and Allen relieving
themselves on the moors. Bloody Murder
quite literally pissing on Heartbeat territory.
The laughs continue when soft hearted Mitch takes pity
on a passing lamb, resulting in a slapstick sequence where she, Evans and her
husband chase the galloping lamb around the moors, before it too joins them on
their ill-fated road trip. The sight of
Mitch in the back of the car, child in one arm, lamb in the other, catches
Bloody Murder in an uncharacteristically cute moment. “Larry the Lamb got his big day out”
Good luck continues to be a stranger to Evans and
Allen however, their trip ends at New Brighton Funfair, which was closed for
the day, and soon both are staring at a police cell. While Evans is as cool as a cucumber, Allen
turns into a terrified, remorseful mess.
Boardman might have Allen down as the Oliver Hardy of the duo, but
Allen’s whimpering admission about Jack “I never even said hello to him” is
pure Stan Laurel.
“In 1964 the death penalty was almost dead” explains
Boardman “if you murdered someone on a whim, you didn’t get hanged
anymore. If you throttled your wife,
your husband or the bloke next door when you’d had one too many, you didn’t get
hanged”. Evans and Allen’s run of bad
luck proved to be terminal though, and a date with history as the last two men
to be hung in Britain beckoned. Evans’
only concern it seems was being remembered as a proud Welshman and
heterosexual, reverting to his Welsh accent for the trial, angrily denying he
was gay, and even claiming to be the father of Mitch’s children, resulting in a
punch up between him and Allen in the dock.
Evans goes to his death still claiming to be straight and to have
fathered hundreds of children. His proclamations
of being God’s gift to women only being silenced by the hangman’s noose. Frequently comedic as this episode of Bloody
Murder is, there is an unexpectedly touching and profound moment during Allen’s
last, between the glass, meeting with Mitch.
“He stole my life, he has, that bastard” he rants, only for Mitch to
sadly reply “you gave it away, Pete, you gave it away”. Allen responds by smashing his face against the
glass, allowing Bloody Murder to get some more gore in front of the
camera. Boardman’s host shows a flicker
of philosophical compassion, telling Mitch “don’t apologise, kid, you’ve got a
life to live”. There’s a happy ending
for Larry the Lamb too. Boardman informs
us that Mitch called the RSPCA, and Larry was adopted by someone who knew how
to care for lambs...awwwwww.
Over the years I’d gotten it into my head that the
episodes of Bloody Murder which dealt with more recent crimes, tended to tone
down the series’ trademark insensitivity, for fear of insulting the still
living relatives of those involved.
Exactly how I came about this notion, I don’t know, since this re-watch
isn’t throwing up a great deal of collaborating evidence.
Each new episode of Bloody Murder brought with it the
question ‘who has got Lee Boardman’s back up this week’? The answer in the episode “The Lady in the
Lake” (broadcast 11/7/05) is amateur underwater divers, a type that failed to
live up to the mid-2000s idea of masculinity.
“Blokes who don’t think much of a game of pool, a few bevies and a vindaloo”
remarks Boardman with contempt “if you’re thinking of knocking off one of your
loved ones and dropping ‘em into a lake, think again, every lake and reservoir
in England is full of these guys”. When
Boardman can be pulled away from picking a fight with amateur underwater
divers, he tells the tale of Peter Hogg who murdered his wife Margaret in an
apparent fit of jealousy in 1976. After
which Hogg disposed of her body in a lake, where it lay until 1984, when one of
those disgraces to masculinity who prefer poking about in dark, deep water to
bevies and vindaloos, uncovered her carefully concealed corpse. Finding more favour with Boardman is the
efforts of the killer “wrapped in plastic and weighed down with a concrete
block...nice job”.
Bloody Murder often leaves you feeling sympathy, not necessarily
for the real life people depicted, but for the long suffering local actors who
are expected to grin and bear being the subject of Boardman’s verbal savagery. The actress playing the ill-fated Margaret
Hogg, takes the brunt of this week’s put downs.
The body discovered in the lake is initially thought to be of a twenty
something French student, who recently disappeared in the area, but as Boardman
ungallantly notes “this slightly soggy stiff looked a good bit older than
that”. Elsewhere Margaret, who was
strangled by her husband after he discovered about an affair, is described as
“a middle aged, overweight woman, who should have known better”. A bit brutal and uncalled for, especially as
the actress playing the role appears to be nether middle aged or overweight,
but then again would you want to argue this point with the erstwhile Jez
Quigley, given that he’d already gotten himself all worked up over amateur
divers.
In fairness Boardman is no less cutting in his
assessment of Peter Hogg himself with the expected, below the belt insults “a
dreary, droning drip with a permanent droop”.
Boardman also revels in the smutty details of Margaret’s infidelity “by God
he was up for it” remarks Boardman of Margaret’s lover “he was up and he stayed
up”.
The discovery of a wedding ring on the corpse soon
brings the police to Peter Hogg’s door (“it’s not the Avon Lady” chuckles
Boardman). Hogg himself however turns out
to be a welcoming and helpful kind of killer, who seems relived to have been
caught and is soon serving up cups of tea to the policemen while confessing to
his crime “he even got the chocolate digestives out” points out Boardman.
Hogg freely recalls the whole story. After losing control and strangling his wife,
he packed up her corpse into his car, complete with rowing equipment and conveniently
discovered a 28 pound slap of concrete along the way. A meeting with the head master of his son’s
boarding school provided Hogg with his alibi, after which he sped over to the Lake
District to dispose of the body. Hogg
rationalises his actions by claiming that had he immediately confessed to the
crime his sons would have grown up without either a father or a mother. Hogg it seems was such a remorseful and
gentile host that the two policemen take pity on his plight, as it seems do the
judge and jury who only convict Hogg of manslaughter and sentence him to an
eyebrow raisingly lenient 15 months in prison.
Bloody Murder isn’t such a soft touch, or as easily won over.
‘The Lady in the Lake’ begins as business as usual for
Bloody Murder with the Hogg story presented as a tacky Punch and Judy Show for
our sick amusement, with commentary to match “Peter Hogg was busy confessing to
strangling his wife, well...she was a slag”.
Initially the episode uncritically plays along with Hoggs version of
events, portraying him as a hard done by, awfully nice chap (albeit one with a
limp dick) whose elaborate cover up of his crime was motivated solely by his
two sons’ well-being. Soon though Bloody
Murder smells bullshit, turns on its subject matter and begins to pull apart
his seemingly selfless motivation. Who
has rope, rowing equipment and enough plastic to wrap a body, so easily to hand
?, and how did Hogg happen to lay his hands on a 28 pound slap of concrete? Boardman’s host drops his usual salivating
ghoul act and adopts an angry, righteous private investigator persona. One who is determined to poke holes in Hogg’s
story, in of course, Boardman’s customarily, blunt, no-nonsense Northern
fashion. “I’ve seen some strange sights
on the Motorway myself, a naked hitchhiker in November, hedgehogs legging it
across all three carriageways, all three lanes of the M6 blocked by a herd of
cows, but I have never ever once seen a 28 pound slab of concrete with a handy
hole in one end stood waiting on the verge”.
Never a show that is shy or embarrassed about its
working class credentials, Bloody Murder has real fire in its belly, over the
idea that Hogg’s middle class respectability helped sway the judge and
jury. “He was a gent, a toff, toffs get
let off” says Boardman with genuine anger and bitterness. Bloody Murder tormenting its audience with
the maxim of ‘there’s one law for them, one law for us’.
Bloody Murder then provides a second, speculative
version of events. One that depicts Hogg
laying in wait for his wife, sporting a black polo neck right out of the Milk
Tray Ads, and then doing away with her amidst eyeball rolling declarations of
“perfect timing” and “bitch”.
Effectively the episode ends up calling out Hogg as a lying, cold
blooded killer right there on television.
Say what you will about Bloody Murder, but the series had balls. Unlike- as per the gospel according to Lee
Boardman- amateur divers.
Cloth caps at the ready as Bloody Murder takes us back
to Blackburn 1935, where “cotton ruled the working classes, six days a
week”. Usually Bloody Murder cast
members can be counted on the one hand, but “The Murder of Helen Chester”
(broadcast 18/7/05) must have caught the producers in a generous mood, as it is
practically an ensemble piece by their standards. Setting the scene with a series of character
sketches of ordinary folk going about their Sunday business, the only day of
leisure in a hard time, in a hard place.
There is a cloth cap wearing old man dozing off in his backyard,
children down a back alley skipping rope, a saucy madam walking the streets
clutching a bible, a front for her to meet her married lover. An amateur cricketer storms home in a rage,
throwing his bat into the back alley.
Amateur cricketers don’t seem to make Boardman see red as much as
amateur divers, but mein host can’t resist a bit of sexual innuendo. According to Boardman the cricketer had been
given “an LBW” quickly clarifying “that’s a cricket thing by the way”.
This being Bloody Murder, you know that sedate mood isn’t
going to last for long, and soon the nothing special Sunday atmosphere is
broken by the disappearance of a child, Helen Chester, prompting the locals to
form a search party. Having a few extras
mill about the countryside in period costumes might not seem like such a big
deal, but by Bloody Murder standards it’s a lavish touch. The community spirit skips James Mills. Dismissing pleas to join the search, Mills
returns home to find his wife Edith traumatised and the body of Helen Chester lying
in a pool of blood in his basement. An
incriminating hammer, also covered in blood, nearby. Fearing the wrath of a lynch mob “they
wouldn’t even get a trial, they wouldn’t even get hanged, they’d be torn limb
from limb”, the Mills take the dramatic, mind-boggling decision to dispose of
Helen’s body...by axe...by saw...and by fireplace.
Only Bloody Murder would consider centring an entire
episode around the dismemberment of a three year old. Just when you think you’ve got the measure of
how low and shameless the series can go, Bloody Murder manages to limbo that
little bit more under the taste barrier.
Boardman is at his most Tod Slaughter-esque here, goading and appalling
an imaginary audience with all the gristly details “poor Helen, now just a
lifeless body, one that wasn’t going to stay in one piece” and “Helen Chester
would never be seen in one piece again...THUMP, THUMP, CHOP, CHOP!!!” So jovial is Boardman here that he even
manages to work an ‘as the actress said to the bishop’ joke into his narrator
duties.
As tends to be the case with Bloody Murder’s subjects,
the Mills provide a master class in how to lead the police straight to your
door and get caught red handed. Chopping
up the body and burning the remains in the fireplace only gets the Mills so far
“by Monday night, one of the arms and legs had gone” Boardman informs us “but
the rest proved harder to dispose of...she hid the bits that didn’t burn under
her clothes in her bedroom drawers”. All
the smoke arising from the Mills’ chimney arouses suspicions, but Mr Mills
really gives the game away by leaving Helen’s severed head wrapped in newspaper
down their own back alley. An unwanted
gift discovered and unwrapped by the Mills’ cricket obsessed neighbour. Mills then seals his fate by telling the
first policeman on the scene that he’d already spotted the package but didn’t
report it since he “hadn’t twigged it was the kiddy’s body” even though it
hadn’t yet been established that it was part of Helen’s body wrapped in that
newspaper.
Period authenticity is one of Bloody Murder’s most
wobbly, inconsistent qualities.
Sometimes the programme can be meticulous and on the ball, other times
it can be as careless as Andy Milligan’s period piece horrors with way too
modern looking door handles, light sockets and even smoke alarms getting into
shot. I’m under no illusion that Bloody
Murder was anything other than the work of artless, journeymen who probably
knocked out local TV programmes by the dozen, but a combination of a low-budget
and period considerations do lend the programme an accidental, but distinct,
visual style. This episode in particular
is awash with tightly composed shots and eccentric camera placement –including
a shot of a policeman filmed from the ground upwards- that like the Milligan
horrors before it were obviously dictated by a need to keep the sights of the
modern world at bay.
As for the Mills, they remained tight lipped as too
their actions. Did Helen have an
accident, which the Mills attempted to cover up? Or had a mysterious intruder
broken in to their basement and committed the crime? Boardman isn’t buying it “not even two of Britain’s
leading legal eagles could persuade even a jury of half-wits to fall for
that”. The Mills’ lawyers were
embarrassingly forced into offering no evidence in their defence, but in an
ironic twist the couple’s ‘say nothing’ stance, ultimately paid off. While the trial resulted in the couple being
sentenced to death, both dodged the hangman’s noose. Mr Mills was even acquitted, after the judge
at the first trial was found to be in error by not advising the jury that they
had the option of convicting the couple of mutilating and concealing a body
rather than murder. Bloody Murder then
repeats its trick from ‘The Lady in the Lake’ episode of offering up two,
speculative version of events. One in
which Mrs Mills accidentally kills the girl, the highly deaf Mills depicted as
nailing a picture to the wall, then striking the child with the hammer as she
turns round. Another pointing to a
mixture of envy (“you’re getting older by the minute, Mrs Mills, lines
everywhere, discoloured teeth” taunts Boardman) and annoyance at the child as
the reason for turning the hammer on her.
The truth however has been lost to time, as such this is an ambiguous
episode of Bloody Murder that frustrates you as a viewer, but intrigues you as
an armchair detective. What happens in
Blackburn, stays in Blackburn.
Bloody Murder travels further back in time to 1889 for
‘Arsenic and Old Lawyers’ (broadcast 15/8/05).
The story of Florence Maybrick, the young American wife of wealthy
cotton merchant James Maybrick. We’re introduced
to Florence buying fly paper at the local store, allegedly to disburse the
flies gathering in her kitchen. Her
actions raise the eyebrows of the shop keeper, who is left to ponder why a lady
such as Florence has ever ventured into the kitchen anyway. An area that the wealthy left to the servants
back in those days. Unbeknownst to the
Alabama born Florence, fly paper had picked up quite the reputation in late ninetieth
century England as a tool for would be poisoners to extract its arsenic content
from. Boardman provides a ‘don’t try
this at home’ type disclaimer, in his own inimitable way “girls if you’re
thinking of popping out for some fly paper, don’t bother, they don’t have
arsenic in them anymore” he advises “just glue and all you’ll do is stick his
lips together”. It turns out that
Florence did want the fly paper for its arsenic content, but not for murder,
rather her husband James had a raging addiction to the stuff, a then popular
jones amongst the rich. “Quite a few
Victorian gents reckoned it did what Viagra does now” claims Boardman. If so, it certainly seems to have had the desired
effect for James Maybrick, who also had a mistress and a few illegitimate children
to support. On the other hand when the
unhappy Florence too strays from the marital bed, and is spotted with her lover
at Aintree, she receives a black eye from her abusive, and arsenic abusing
hubby. James Maybrick’s chronic
addictions begin to take their toll on his health, leading to an acute
dyspepsia diagnosis and for him to seek an embarrassing suppository cure. Naturally this being Bloody Murder, the
programme has a field day when it comes to the administration of Morpheus
suppositories, with the actor playing Maybrick required to drop his trousers
while the actor playing the doctor pretends to pop one in. “Very popular with Victorian quacks were
suppositories” notes our host, adding “they liked a bit of discomfort in those
days”. The Victorian quack disgustingly
wipes his fingers on his suit, before complimenting himself on “a job well
done”. Florence voices contempt for the
antics of her ailing husband’s doctor within earshot of maid Alice Yapp, who
hates her. Florence further blots her copybook
with Yapp after foolishly sending Yapp to post a letter to her lover, telling
of her husband’s ill-health and her despair at caring for him. Naturally the trouble making Yapp opens the
letter, passing it on to Maybrick’s brother, who also despises Florence. Soon Florence is virtually a prisoner in her
own home, having been placed under house arrest by Maybrick’s brother, who
assumes control of the household.
Maybrick eventually expires in his bed and Florence ends up on trial for
murder. By Bloody Murder standards this
isn’t too much of a violent comeuppance, so you guessed it...its AUTOPSY
TIME!!! as another blood splattered
pathologist is shown hacking away at a corpse, much to Boardman’s gleeful
approval “all his bit and bobs got a good looking at”.
As with ‘The Murder of Helen Chest’ episode, this is
another Bloody Murder outing that is indecisive over its subject’s guilt or innocence. What with James Maybrick’s twenty year
addiction to arsenic, it really tough to say whether his demise was
self-inflicted or whether Florence did away with him. Even if she was slipping him some arsenic on
the sly, his own voluntary intake of it, leaves a huge question mark over whether
she or he should take the blame for his death.
Bloody Murder initially paints her as an icy, adulteress, femme fatale
but appears to have doubts and second thoughts over that image as it
progresses. In all likelihood there is a
very credible case for Florence Maybrick being a victim of the era’s puritanical,
and possibly xenophobic, mentality. Her
biggest crime in the eyes of Victorian society seemingly being adultery. Florence is hauled in front of a courtroom
full of hissing spectators and an apparently senile judge, who as Boardman
points out, later died in an asylum. The
Judge condemns Florence in his summing up by claiming “a woman capable of
adultery, was probably capable of anything”.
Found guilty, and eventually serving fourteen years in prison, it is implied
that her incarceration met with Royal approval with Queen Victoria quoted as
demanding “that wicked adulteress should rot in prison”.
Compassion isn’t something that comes easy to Bloody
Murder either, particularly for a privileged woman from a different
century. By rights this episode should
be passionate and incensed about society’s treatment of Florence, but there is
an air of indifference about her here. The
episode instead getting its jollies by throwing guts around and getting belly
laughs about suppositories. That’s where
this episode’s head is at. Boardman’s
riposte to the judge’s comment is straight out of the working men’s club joke
book “a woman capable of adultery was probably capable of anything” scoffs
Boardman “I’ve known married women who’d have the pants off any fella, and they
still couldn’t change a plug”.
Lest the audience’s bloodlust isn’t fully satisfied by
that autopsy, this episode pulls some last minute gore from its sleeve, thanks
to the footnote that in 1992 a diary, alleged written by James Maybrick,
emerged that pointed to him being Jack the Ripper. Inspiring this episode of Bloody Murder to
sign off with a cheap recreation of a Jack the Ripper murder, with the Maybrick
actor dressed up in traditional Ripper garb of a top hat and cape, as he is
seen making a bloody mess of a Victorian prostitute down a dark
alley...personally, i blame the suppositories.
Had they thought to make public information films in
the 1920s, of the variety that gave children the fear about talking to
strangers, then they’d have probably looked like Bloody Murder episode “Murder
on the Moors” (broadcast 4/7/05). You
certainly wouldn’t have wanted Albert Burrows as a babysitter, a slobbering, moustached,
obese creep who had stone cold pervert written all over him. Albert is seen with his trademark thick
stick, embarking on a moorlands walk with Tommy Wood, the four year old son of
one of his neighbours. Young Tommy
doesn’t come back down from the moors.
It’s likely that this episode was shot back to back
with ‘The Murder of Helen Chester’, a grim double-bill if ever there was
one. They both contain lengthy search
party sequences, seemingly sporting the same locations, possibly the same
actors, and certainly the same vintage policeman’s outfits. The latter presumably on loan from ‘Greater
Manchester Police Museum’ who are thanked in the end credits of both
episodes.
Leading the search is Albert Burrows, in a transparent
attempt to divert suspicions from himself.
Albert proves to be the most dedicated of the search party, continuing
on well into the night, till he is the last man on the moors. Detective John Ellis Shadwick smells a rat though,
especially when he delves into Albert’s chequered past. One that includes convictions for “stealing,
larceny, assault, cruelty to a cat, bigamy”.
The assault convictions in particular catches Shadwick’s eye, since they
involve “children...little children”.
This is visualised in a sequence that is equal parts P.I.F and British
horror film, as Burrows loiters around a graveyard, menacingly approaching an
unfortunate young boy, whose terrified face ends up filling the
screen...leaving little doubt as to what kind of assault we’re talking about
here.
Over the years I have given quite a bit of
consideration as to why the majority of Bloody Murder was filmed in black and
white, with only Boardman’s host segments being presented in colour. It’s an unusual move for a series that was
going out on a commercial TV channel in the mid-2000s. Was it an attempt to match these recreations
with the well worn black and white archive footage that the series occasionally
falls back on to bring these bygone times to life (if so, it doesn’t
work). Or did ITV get cold feet over the
amount of gore in the series and hoped that it going out in black and white would
lessen the impact (if so, again it doesn’t work, and there is a moment in this
episode that blows that theory to pieces).
Whatever the reason, it’s hard to deny that black and white often feels
just right for Bloody Murder. The tough,
poverty stricken times evoked by the programme and the tales of misery that
came out of it, would never be well served by colour. The use of black and white in this particular
episode turns out to be a blessing in disguise.
Leading eerie atmosphere to its landscape of church graveyards and
desolate, foreboding moorlands.
Bloody Murder’s mission in life is to dispel the idea
of the past being an oasis of crime free decency where people could leave their
doors open and where nothing bad ever happened to anyone. All sentimental, rose-tinted bullshit,
according to Bloody Murder. “A time of
innocence, makes you wish you could go back in time” narrates Boardman over
some of that aforementioned black and white archive footage (courtesy of the
‘North West Film Archive at Manchester Metropolitan University’) before
ominously adding “....or does it?”.
Every episode of Bloody Murder walks a tight rope
between a programme that can be entertaining and a programme that is too dark,
too depressing to do anything but plunge you into the doldrums. You take your chances with Bloody
Murder. Murder on the Moors is firmly in
the latter camp, what with its themes of child killing and sexual abuse, it
captures the series at its most sombre, with Boardman’s jokey shtick dialled
down significantly. In a calculated,
tabloidish manner it’s an episode designed to work the audience into a blood boiling,
fist clenching fury, constantly torturing them with all the horrendous details
of Burrows’ crimes. After little Tommy’s
lifeless body is fished out of a mineshaft, its revealed “he’d been raped,
brutally, and was probably alive when he was thrown down the shaft”. The sight of Burrow’s face sporting a sly
grin, prompts an insult of “the smug bastard” from Boardman. After the discovery of Tommy’s body an impromptu
lynch mob charges after Burrows, and nearly succeeded in hanging him from a
tree. A turn of events that gets the
Boardman seal of approval “nothing like a good lynching...you’re gonna dangle
and strangle”. The police break up the
party however, and detective Shadwick’s examination of Burrows’ bigamy charge
reveals even deeper depths to Burrows’ depravity. A further excavation of the mineshaft
unearths the remains of Burrows’ mistress, her four year old daughter and “a
few bits of a baby boy...Burrows’ own son”.
After working the audience up into a frenzy, Bloody Murder finally
provides them with the cathartic charge of seeing the villain of the piece get
his comeuppance. Quite the comeuppance
it turns out to be as well, with Burrows pathetically pleading his innocence as
the noose goes around his neck. When he
is hung, there is a close-up of piss running down his feet, prompting Boardman
to chip in “a little trip to the lav, before all this, might have been a good
idea”. So pleased were the makers of
Bloody Murder with this shot that it takes pride of place in the series’
opening credits. Although it’s only when
you see this moment in its proper context, that it dawns on you just how
obscene that shot is.
Don’t start to disperse yet though, the audiences’ cries for vengeance might have been satisfied, but they’re yet to get their expected bloodshed from the programme. Bloody Murder manages to satisfy that demand, even if it does have to scramble around the back roads of the story to find it. The fate of Burrows’ hangman, John ‘the Rochdale Executioner’ Ennis, leads Bloody Murder to this week’s gore quota. After he walked away from his job, Ennis became tired of life, but proved less adept at executing himself as he had others. Turning a gun on himself only resulted in him blowing a bit of his jaw off. A few weeks later a cut throat razor succeeded in finishing the job.
In a gimmicky
horror movie fashion, Bloody Murder momentarily reverts from black and white to
bring you the sight of Ennis slashing his throat in full colour, bright red
blood splashing all over the camera lens.
Leaving Boardman to wonder “why would an expert hangman not hang
himself?” Bloody Murder provides a
possible answer, with a reprise of Burrows’ pissing himself, this time with a
child’s laughter creepily dubbed onto the soundtrack.
“The Sack Murder” (broadcast 23/8/05) takes us back to
Liverpool 1913 and introduces us to George Sumner, a slimy employee at
‘Bradfield and Tenor Tarpaulins’ a manufacturing company that is doing a brisk
trade in sacks. “People used allot of
sacks in 1913” explains Boardman “they had too, nobody had invented plastic,
imagine that eh? A world without plastic bags”.
A dandy dresser with delusions of being a ladies’ man, anything in a
skirt and who is above his own station is fair game for George. The initial object of his universally
unwanted attention, aloof and bossy Ms. Venables quickly makes it clear she
wants nothing to do with him. Later
George fumes when he catches Ms. Venables having it away with a lowly fellow
employee. His ego ruptured, Sumner now
channels his attentions onto Christina Bradfield, the posh daughter of the
company’s founder, with disastrous consequences. Playing the part of the long suffering,
working class stud, Sumner tells co-worker Sammy Elltoft to hang around for him
after work because “she’s been pestering me, she’ll be sick as chips if i don’t
give her one”. As if. Unable to cope when his advances are spurred
for a second time, Sumner explodes into a rage “frigging tease, all those
looks”, beating Christina over the head with a hammer. Boardman’s host role becomes both Dr Jekyll
and Mr Hyde here. Boardman defends
m’lady’s honour “she’s a respectable
professional woman, and if she did want a man that’s just what she’d want a
man, not some jumped up, half witted twerp” but then narrates from Sumner’s
point of view “whose Miss high and mighty now”, jumping inside of Sumner’s
head, and what is going on in there sure isn’t pretty. Undeterred by the bloody hole in his left in
her forehead, Sumner hikes up Christina’s dress, having his way with her dying,
if not already dead, body. “If you want
to know what necrophilia is” advices Boardman “look it up for yourself”.
Sumner hurries out to Sammy, trying to brush off the
incident as rough sex gone wrong, claiming they were “having it away against a
door, and fell over and she banged her head”.
Sammy isn’t buying it, but a flash of the cash Sumner has lifted from
Christina’s purse convinces him to aid and abet Sumner anyway. Taking advantage of being in a sack making
factory (“just as well it wasn’t a tin-can factory” quips Boardman) the pair
wrap her body in one of the sacks, disposing of it in a nearby canal. Since concrete wasn’t around back then, the
body is soon discovered and leads a trail right back to Sumner and Sammy. “There was all sort of things you could find
in canals in those days, not supermarket trolleys or kiddies bikes, just the
odd body or two, it really was the good old days” jokes Boardman.
In an unexpected flash of intelligence Sammy concocts
a version of events that incriminates Sumner but absolves himself, telling the
police he “just thought it was rubbish” he was dumping in the canal. Sumner on the other hand goes on the run, but
despite Liverpool’s docklands offering the chance for overseas travel, can’t
bring himself to go far. “He was a
genuine scouser” says Boardman “Warrington was a different country to
him”. Sumner instead turns master of
disguise, and is soon sporting a ludicrous moustache (phoney moustaches are a
bit of a Bloody Murder hallmark, but at least this one is meant to be
funny). Sumner’s distinct ape-like way
of walking soon gives the game away, and a silly walk leads him to a date with
the hangman. All the while unapologetically boasting of his sexual conquest “I
gave it to her real good”. Murder, rape
and necrophilia- Bloody Murder’s idea of going out with a bang rather than a
whimper.
So, with ‘The Sack Murder’ Bloody Murder cockily
swaggered off into the night, never again to darken television’s doorstep. 16 years on, it’s a safe bet that a series 3
of Bloody Murder isn’t forthcoming.
There has been nothing so appalling in the annals of North West
television before or since. Bloody
Murder is the most tasteless, callous, insensitive, indefensible, blood
splattered series ever to air on British TV, yet call it what you will, even
the slightest exposure to Bloody Murder should tip you off that this is a mean
son of a bitch of a programme, one that doesn’t give two fucks what anyone
thinks of it. By today’s standards its
beyond the pale, a raw meat eating, red eyed, anti-social beast of a TV
programme, no doubt locked away in a damp, dark basement of ITV, in a room
covered with bloody handprints, kept hidden behind a door marked ‘Do Not
Repeat’.
Deep down I know that I’m making the internet a worse place by contaminating it with Bloody Murder’s memory, but after 16 years lingering on in my subconscious I think it is time to give the series one last stab at infamy. See, in all those 16 years, I’ve never met a single other person who has seen it, so resign myself to the fact that if I don’t write about Bloody Murder, then no one else will. The great tragedy of Bloody Murder is that it is a programme born to cause outrage, offense and controversy, but in the event couldn’t get arrested. A late night timeslot, the boring facade of a local interest programme and lack of exposure outside of the North West dooming it to a life of obscurity. It was addictive though, you have to give Bloody Murder its dues there. Like Murray Brown in Vampyres, you failed to heed good advice, and week after week returned back for another dark session, even though you knew that each time you did, you were being drained of a little bit more of your humanity. This then was the price Bloody Murder demanded for seeing the cobbled streets of the North West run red with blood.
