Drama > Shergold, Adrian Drama

Aka The Last Hangman

Advantages: Educational and quite emotional in places
Disadvantages: Dark subject but never trivialised

Let me get this over and said right away. You WILL see hangings. Executions. It's a very dark film. And not just the subject matter. This is some of the story of Albert Pierrepoint, the United Kingdom's most prolific executioner of modern times. The settings of most scenes and the shooting of them are very dark or quite dark. Not much of this film is brightly lit, but there is a good reason for that. A dark subject needs a suitable background & setting ...
...2 which carried on into the early 1950's. Albert starts out as a humble grocer who is eager to follow in his fathers footsteps as an executioner. His 1st job is supposed to be as an assistant to a hangman but the man he is supposed to be assisting loses his nerve and Albert steps in to take his place and hangs the man thus taking his first step towards a career and infamy. Albert is even chosen by Field Marshal Montgomery to go to Germany and execute ...

atytyut2434 09.03.2009 · Read full review
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Review of Pierrepoint (DVD)

Love with OCD and Tourette's

Advantages: Compelling viewing
Disadvantages: Subject matter may put some off

Mark is struggling with life. Stevie, his wife has left him, he isn't working because of depression, and his behaviour is becoming odd - his head jerks involuntarily, he swears when he doesn't mean to and he has strange compulsions when climbing stairs and getting washed. One thing is keeping him going - getting his wife back. He tries to pull himself together, going back to his boss to let him know that he is ready to start work again - but his ...
...because his behaviour is affecting business. Then he bumps into Charlie in the doctor's and she suggests he comes along to a self-help group for people with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD). Things begin to look up...but will they continue this way? And will he manage to win Stevie over? Mark is played by Michael Sheen, who played Tony Blair in The Queen and, more recently, David Frost in Frost/Nixon. This is a very different role. Mark finds ...

sunmeilan 04.05.2009 · Read full review
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Review of Dirty Filthy Love (DVD)

Brilliant and True School Drama

Advantages: Walters is Brilliant
Disadvantages: None

Plot: Based on the true story of Marie Stubbs, played by Julie Walters, who turned St George's around, a notorious London comprehensive that was facing closure. Filmed and originally shown by ITV, it is a gritty and strong depiction of Marie Stubb's book Ahead of the Class. Phillip Lawerence, Head Teacher of St George's in 1995 when he was murdered outside the school. By 2000 Ofsted had placed the school on special measures. The story that ...
...and characters being added or altered' in this version, as stated at the start. The story itself begins with chaos at the school; meanwhile Stubb's quietly prepares herself for her new role and faces the press on her decision to do so. At the school a fight breaks out and a boy is severely hurt, with blood everywhere, immediately outlining the difficulties facing Stubb's. Through a series of new and often simple initiatives within the school she ...

veryluckyshorty 16.07.2008 · Read full review
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Review of Ahead Of The Class (DVD)

I loved it!

Advantages: Brilliant on screen chemistry and of curse RPJ
Disadvantages: Doesn't stick to the book

...in. The ITV dramatisation of Persuasion was therefore no exception. Now as some of you may already know I'm not actually that fond of classic novels or their dramatisations but I'm definitely glad that the addition of Rupert to this cast made me watch it, as I fell in love with both story, which I went on the read, and dramatisation. Persuasion is one of Jane Austen's most admired novels and tells the story of a woman who gets a second chance. When ...
...at the age of nineteen fell in love with and accepted a proposal from a young naval Officer called Frederick Wentworth (Rupert Penry Jones) she was the happiest girl alive. But with no fortune or rank to recommend him Anne's family were less than happy with the arrangements and despite her better judgement Anne broke off the engagement. Eight years later Anne has never stopped loving Frederick and has regretted listening to her family instead of ...

MI9to5 25.09.2008 · Read full review
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Review of Persuasion (DVD)

A hangman's tale of unexpected humanity

Advantages: A riveting account of Britain's most prolific executioner
Disadvantages: Detailed, explicit and not for the faint hearted

PIERREPOINT, THE BACKGROUND Albert Pierrepoint (1905 -1992) was the most prolific and ultimately the most infamous hangman of the twentieth century. During a career that began in 1932 and eventually spanned 24 years, he executed an estimated 433 men and 17 women, including 6 US soldiers and some 200 Nazis war criminals condemned during the Nuremberg Trials. Born in Bradford, the son of Henry and Mary Pierrepoint, he wrote in a school essay at the ...
...PIERREPOINT, THE MOVIE Pierrepoint is one of those rare little British movie gems that does not attract a huge amount of hype during its release. Subsequently, they become easy to miss and if it wasn't for an extensive radio review that I listened to in the car somewhere in the Fens between Norfolk and Cambridgeshire I would have been unaware of the movie. For all you movie buffs who require the facts, they are: Directed by Adrian Shergold Written ...

britum2000 02.10.2006 · Read full review
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Review of Pierrepoint (DVD)