A Cruel Love: The Ruth Ellis Story, a four-part drama series starring Lucy Boynton (Bohemian Rhapsody, Murder on the Orient Express, The Politician) that tells the story of the last woman to be hanged in Britain from her perspective, premiered within the U.S. on streaming service BritBox this week and can hit U.K. streamer ITVX in March.
Produced by ITV Studios‘ Silverprint Pictures and based on Carol Ann Lee’s biography A Fantastic Day for Hanging: The Real Ruth Ellis Story, the show also features Toby Jones as Ellis’ lawyer, Laurie Davidson because the lover shot and killed by Ellis, Mark Stanley, Joe Armstrong, Arthur Darvill, Juliet Stevenson, Toby Stephens, Amanda Drew, and Bessie Carter. The script was written by Kelly Jones, with Angie Daniell producing the series and Lee Haven Jones directing all 4 episodes.
Silverprint creative director Kate Bartlett and development director Antonia Gordon are executive producers of the series. And so they got here to develop the project quite unexpectedly.
“We knew she was the last one to be hanged. It’s certainly one of those things we knew growing up,” Bartlett tells THR. “And there was the film Dance With a Stranger (starring Miranda Richardson and Rupert Everett, in 1985). But I got an email out of the blue from certainly one of her grandsons, saying that his grandmother’s story had never been fully told. It was a very unsolicited email. So we met up, and he talked to us concerning the incredibly researched, implausible book by Carol Ann Lee, A Fantastic Day for a Hanging: The Real Ruth Ellis Story, which is definitely being renamed A Cruel Love in its republication. We read it and auctioned it since it is a unprecedented book that tells the complete story and the hidden history of the events leading as much as the shooting and her shocking one-day trial.”
Gordon says that Ellis’ story leading as much as her hanging in 1955 brings together different topics and genres. “Above all, we desired to tell her story,” she tells THR. “That goes through female empowerment, through court, through the crime. Ruth was quite a trailblazer. She worked from the age of 14. She ran this very successful club. She was a single mother. Those were all things that were far more difficult back then. She was ahead of her time.”
The author and producers made a key selection concerning the series’ structure. “We didn’t wish to tell a linear story of A to B. Also, it’s a strong, emotional story, and we didn’t need to make it grim and gritty,” Bartlett explains. “So we used the structure of the present-day story and the past story. In a single, you get to see the colourful, gorgeous Ruth as a successful woman. She is that this charismatic, incredible woman who fell in love with David Blakely, and it was a passionate and obsessive relationship. But it surely was also toxic and abusive. So it was necessary to inform the complete story.”
Gordon recalls that “loads of younger members of the crew who didn’t know the story and didn’t see the film,” and so they were in for a surprise. “What shocked people was how recent it was that individuals were hanged within the U.K., and Ruth’s hanging in 1955 then brought concerning the change of the law in 1957. Diminished responsibility got here in (as a legal concept). Had that been available to her, she may possibly have had her charge reduced to manslaughter reasonably than murder. After which in ’65 the law was modified to do away with capital punishment within the U.K. So, there was loads of talk around that.”
Also notable is that within the series, Nigel Havers plays his own grandfather, Cecil Havers, the judge who sentenced Ruth Ellis to death. “Nigel, who’s a British legend, played his grandfather. We weren’t sure whether he might do it, and he did,” says Gordon.
“The court episode, which is episode two, is kind of shocking for the proven fact that each word spoken within the court is verbatim,” Bartlett adds. “We weren’t allowed to vary a single word, so every little thing that is claimed is from the transcripts. It’s really shocking to see how Ruth was treated and likewise how she type of clammed up and didn’t help herself. So, Nigel says that his grandfather was desperately attempting to see if there was a way for her to open up a bit.”
The chief producers conclude by singing the commitment of everyone who worked on the series. “We were really lucky to get such an incredible solid and crew,” says Gordon. And Bartlett concludes: “It’s been a passion piece for all of us and everybody involved.”
