"Are you sure you buried Heather all in one place?" ITV Drama Review- Appropriate Adult

ITV and Channel 4 turn out some great drama based on things that have really happened, the extremes of the human condition. Compared to the stories BBC occasionally create that glimmer among the diatribe of soaps and "continuing drama" like Waterloo Road, they tend to be about true crime or disturbingly written dramas such as Red Riding, pushing what can be done and told on TV.

More than a few echoes of Longford, in which Jim Broadbent shone, as he always does. Perhaps it was the continuous prison visitations or just the sense of someone who should know better being drawn into the web of lies and seduction woven by a serial killer as Longford experienced with Myra Hindley and Leach found with Fred West, or the nature of the crimes, but they mirrored well. Standing up in comparison to Longford, Appropriate Adult unfortunately fell a little short.

The first thing to say about Appropriate Adult is that it is a "period piece" in that it perfectly, one hundred percent captures the early nineties, 1994 being the year in question. Everything is dour, drab and dowdy, from DC Hazel Savage's glasses to West's jumpers to the cold, grey, almost washed out palette that it was shot in. Whether it was a directorial decision to shoot through such a "grim" colour filter for dramatic effect, implying the sense of skin-tightening horror that would probably grab you were you in on the interviews too or for another reason, such as to appropriately "age" the event in light of criticism that perhaps this drama was coming too soon after the fact I'm not sure, but it's certainly effective. In much the same way that the last three Harry Potter films have employed an almost greyscale palette to denote grit and adult themes, such was the effect here.

And what adult themes they are. The programme isn't for the faint of heart. To hear Dominic West so flippantly and calmly, almost jovially, talk about dismembering bodies and burying the separate pieces in the back garden, all through a creaking, gravelly West Country accent that disarms the ear with it's bumpkin-like connotations is quite chilling. The dialogue in the interviews, much of it lifted from what was actually said, is seepingly horrific, made worse by the fact that it takes a few seconds to process and then the realisation of what is being said hits home. Lines such as "I closed her eyes first- well, you don't want to cut your daughter's head off with her looking at you, do you?" slip in and surprise you.

The first half of the programme really sets out its grim, menacing atmosphere, and while the second half lost some of that sense of the terrifyingly surreal attitude of Fred West it still concluded quite well. Some of the possible fabrications, such as the suicidal thoughts of Janet Leach (the eponymous appropriate adult) because she "missed" West were jarring, in that her timid presence in the interviews never really showed any feeling toward him. It was always going to be difficult portraying the strange relationship between the two of them, the casually confessing West who was only there to "get it all sorted out" because any police investigation was a bit of a nuisance for his beloved family and the prim, quiet family woman who eventually became an eager confidant, and I'm not sure that that duo quite came across convincingly.

The programme did feature,for me, two stand-out performances- those of Dominic West as Fred West and Sylvestra Le Touzel who, as Detective Constable Hazel Savage, manages to completely capture the dreary early nineties and a dogged, stoic policewoman faced with a repulsive, toying confessor. Though we see very little of her in either episode, slightly more in the second, Monica Dolan deserves a lot of praise for bristlingly portraying Rose West, her tantrum-like outbursts and stony silences dripping equal feral menace. Had we seen more of her she would have been the stand out cast member.

All in all, it was honestly probably a little long. Had it been a one-off, hour and a half film in the same manner as Longford then it probably would have worked better, but at over two hours it seemed to drag in places. Not that it was watched particularly for the excitement or intensity, rather the drawn out effect of thinking you'd be helping a special needs offender and being offered Fred West, the first interaction with whom has you listening to the man recount chopping up his flesh and blood while "Rose was out, shopping. She 'ad nothin' to do with any of it."

For someone who was only five at the time that all this was going on, I really knew nothing about the Wests other than that they killed people, and as such the detail in this drama was perhaps more entertaining, through catharsis rather than enjoyment, than it would have been to older viewers of just one generation before. As a piece of TV, West's performance as West was exceptional, and having seen him flap about on The Hour on BBC One recently it was refreshing.

That said, he has himself spoken of dreaming of Fred West in nightmares, pulling him down, and in the role he is so convincing that I can't say for sure I wouldn't be slightly disturbed meeting him in real life. If the show were all about Fred West, as Infamous, based on the true crime murder of a Kansas family and what made their killers do it, it would have been more successful. As a study of the appropriate adult Janet Leach, however, it seems to focus elsewhere and doesn't convey the same sympathy even as the character of Hindley induced in Longford.