Top Posts Tagged with #billy hamon

#To encourage the others

#alan clarke

#BBC

#Single play

#classic tv

#David Yallop

#Charles Bolton

#Billy Hamon

#Roland Culver

#Philip Stone

#Wensley Pithey

#Arthur Lovegrove

#Carmel McSharry

#John Ringham

#Ken Halliwell

#Michael Sheard

#Christopher Coll

#Derrick Slater

#A hugely significant work in the filmography of Clarke and indeed an incredibly important piece of British TV. Sometimes described as a

#Play for Today altho there's no evidence it was ever transmitted under that banner (it probably had many of the same team working on it tho

#That wouldn't be unusual). The Bentley case is lodged in the public consciousness of the UK as one of the most blatant and shocking

#Miscarriages of justice in the modern era; this play followed the 71 publication of a book of the same name which sought to clear Bentley's

#Name and establish the facts of the case. In the process Clarke and writer Yallop establish the benchmark for producing riveting docudrama;

#Court room scenes follow official transcripts and reenactments are cleverly staged as a sequence of bw photographs. For all that it's

#Professional and measured in approach you can't miss the subtle rage which beats just below the surface: rage at a system which knowingly

#Perverts itself to mete out punishment it feels befitting. Clarke keeps the screen very crowded and tight giving everything a claustrophobi

#Desperate feel (which of course is only heightened in the scenes in Bentley's cell). The use of quotation cards and official statement

#Extracts is only another carefully considered tool as well; the very final quote (from the then crown prosecution service and informing the

#Production team that there was not requisite public interest in reopening Bentley's case 20 years after his death) feels like a punch to

#The gut. That it would in fact be another 25 years after this play aired before Bentley was finally pardoned is an affront to all decency.

#billy hamon