It took the jury 14 minutes to decide that Ruth Ellis should receive a death sentence. Convicted of the murder of her lover, racing driver David Blakely, the 28-year-old was hanged in London’s Holloway Prison in July 1955. She would be the last woman to be executed in the UK before the suspension of capital punishment a decade later.
There is no doubt that Ellis killed Blakely — she was arrested on site and openly admitted her guilt. But the question of whether her actions were premeditated and cold-blooded or rather a desperate reaction to years of physical and emotional abuse has lingered for 70 years. An absorbing four-part ITV drama now re-examines Ellis’s complex case and her tragic, truncated life with a consideration that she was perhaps not afforded in court.
A Cruel Love: The Ruth Ellis Story opens with shots of a last meal being served and a noose being prepared — a queasy reminder of where this tale leads. From there the series cuts between various flashback threads: one traces the tempestuous, ultimately fatal love affair; a second covers the period between the killing and the conviction; another captures the bleak, lonely days before the hanging.
The layering of timelines, though structurally fiddly, allows a more multi-faceted image of Ellis (Lucy Boynton) to emerge. We witness the strong character and fierce conviction that enables her to transcend her troubled childhood to become London’s youngest nightclub manager, as well as the naivety that leaves her vulnerable to Blakely’s coerciveness. We see her uninhibited sexuality, her numb detachment in the aftermath of the murder, the vanity that inhibits her defence and the eroded sense of self-worth that leads her to downplay her traumas.
All these contradictions come together thanks to Boynton’s fine lead performance. There are strong supporting turns too from Laurie Davidson, who convincingly captures both Blakely’s aggression and mental frailty, and Toby Jones, who brings tenderness and integrity to his part as Ellis’s solicitor, John Bickford.
But the series’ power is often attenuated by overripe production and a heavy-handed script that risks turning a thorny true story into stagy melodrama. The most revealing moments are those that play out in the courtroom and follow the transcript of the real trial. These scenes lay bare the chauvinism and prurient scrutiny that Ellis was subjected to. In the end, she wasn’t just tried for killing a man, but judged as a woman who transgressed sexual norms and crossed class boundaries.
★★★☆☆
Episode 2 airs on ITV1 on March 12 at 9pm. Streaming on ITVX in the UK and on Britbox in the US