Coogan captures the charm and creepy depravity of the notorious abuser. But this is a horrific tale most of us already know – and the BBC’s depressing drama adds little of value
If you are among the vanishingly few people left in the country who do not know that Jimmy Savile was an absolutely evil man, then I recommend watching The Reckoning, a dramatisation of his story written by Neil McKay and starring Steve Coogan as the necro-paedophile, OBE.
If you do know who he is – well, I wonder. Stripped of context, The Reckoning is a rigorously well-made and polished thing. It takes us from 1962, as Savile’s career as a DJ on the northern club circuit began to gain traction, through his years as an increasingly beloved and powerful figure on radio and then television, and on until his much-mourned death in 2011 at the age of 84, untouched and then untouchable by any revelations about his awful secrets. For some reason, it is interspersed with a lot of archive footage of the real Savile that interrupts the viewer’s engagement. Stopping your tale to remind people that truth and the man at the heart of it were even stranger than fiction is an odd decision.
The Reckoning aired on BBC One and is on iPlayer.
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