THE RECKONING

UK, 2023, 4 X 60 minutes, Colour.

Steve Coogan, Mark Stanley, Robert Emms, Gemma Jones, Neal Pearson, Siobhan Finneran, Mark Lewis Jones, Fenella Woolgar.

Directed by David Blair, Sandra Goldbacher.

The Reckoning is a strong television series, very difficult to watch. It is the story of the career of television personality, Jimmy Savile, and the revelation, a reckoning, of his abusive life.

The screenplay has been cowritten by Dan Davies, who had seen a television program of Jimmy Savile when he was young, followed through with his interest in Savile and seeming inconsistencies in his persona, eventually many interviews with Savile himself, finally writing an award winning account of several and his crimes.

From Wikipedia: “The boxes containing the many tapes, interview transcripts, newspaper cuttings and research articles that went into my book are taped shut and piled high in a shed. I don't want them in the house in which my three children live.

Davies' book In Plain Sight: The Life and Lies of Jimmy Savile was published in 2014. The book formed part of the basis of the BBC television series The Reckoning, and the series includes many scenes where Davies, played by Mark Stanley, interviews Savile.^”

 ^{The sequences of interviews with Davies are a framework for the exploration of Savile’s life – and they are uncomfortable watching, Savile sociable, insinuating about his life yet in denial, needing to talk to Davies, the clashing, his calling him back.}

^{With the flashbacks, there is information about  Savile and his family, his referring to his mother as the Duchess (played by Gemma Jones), visiting her in Scarborough, grieved at her death, yet revering her as something of a saint. Then there are his early years in television, his eccentric manner, his way of talking, the friendly persona, on the BBC, Top of the Pops – and later his program as he travelled in his caravan interviewing people around the UK and his manoeuvring himself into the television program, Jimmy’ll Fix It.}

^{It was courageous of Steve Coogan to take on the role but he has shown quite versatility in television programs and personas as Well Is in films. He is made up to look like Savile, perform like Savile. And the filmmakers have decided to include quite a range of sequences with the actual Jimmy Savile making Coogan’s performance all the more eerie.}

^{The series is in four parts. By the second part, teenage enthusiasts are introduced, focusing on one girl in particular who is assaulted and commits suicide. While Savile is called before the authorities, he always has an answer and, despite rumours, succeeded in his covering his crimes until he died.}

^{Each episode is framed by testimonies from actual survivors of Savile’s crimes. And, some of their stories are re-enacted, when they were children or young adults, making Samples double life, especially his travelling caravan, all the more sinister, accosting, especially young girls, and assaulting them with dire results.}

^{But, unmarried, capitalising on his freedoms, over the decades he raised millions of pounds for hospitals, acclaimed by Margaret Thatcher who eventually gave him a knighthood (actress Fenella Woolgar doing an excellent impression of Margaret Thatcher), crazed affirmed by Diane, meeting with the Pope, John Paul II during his tour of Britain, a papal knighthood.}

^{However, there were some who are suspicious, especially at the end, the series showing him hanging around hospitals, lurking in the morgue suspiciously, confronting nursing staff who push in the side.}

^{With the revelations after his death, great disillusionment with the British public, to have feted him and believed him for Savile’s many decades, the discovery that he was an abuser, a predator, narcissistic, all show in stating he would put smiles on people’s faces, but interiorly, a loner, lonely, angry…}

^{The series should be seen in conjunction with the BBC documentary, Jimmy Savile: A British Horror Story (2022).}