Mother's ruin

Lejink

This BBC dramatisation of the kidnap of schoolgirl Shannon Matthews by her own mother and young step-father's uncle in 2008 made for uncomfortably tough viewing. Controversially alluding to the nearly contemporary disappearance of young Madeleine McCann, it seems that the two accomplices sought to benefit financially from the reward money after the little girl's disappearance had been extensively publicised thanks in no small measure to the local community campaigning tirelessly to find her. It's a crime that seems completely inexplicable and we the viewer get to share the initial incredulity and later sense of betrayal at Matthews for taking them in for so long a period.

The drama almost completely ignores the uncle who actually hid the young girl for days and instead concentrates on the mother, a hapless, feckless individual with numerous children to different men, who looks a fright throughout with her comb-over hair and slovenly appearance. How she interacts with her two best friends and neighbours, played by Sheridan Smith and Sian Brooke, the one tirelessly supportive the other increasingly sceptical, underpins the dramatic tension of the piece.

The depiction of this poor working-class community and their surroundings is convincingly done and the acting by the three leads is very good. Gemma Whelan as Karen Matthews is particularly compelling as a woman desperate for love and attention but who takes her need way too far in shamefully exposing her own daughter to harm. Smith looks almost unrecognisable in her dressed-down, fattened-up role as the community's main cheer-leader and Brooke is also very good as the doubting Thomasina of the town who suspects Matthews almost from the first.

Throughout we were given no scenes at all showing the daughter's imprisonment, indeed she is barely seen at all in the whole two hours running time. I accepted this as we all knew how the story played out anyway although I did think the uncle, who got the same eight year jail sentence as Matthews, should have been given more prominence for his connivance in the scheme. I did think at times there was too much focus on Smith's character. Even though I get that we were meant to see the whole thing through her eyes and thus feel with her the disappointment of her disillusionment and revulsion at the crime committed by her so-called friend, perhaps more could have been done to highlight the effect of all this on the innocent eight year old girl herself.

Was the BBC right on taste grounds to make this film when it's still fresh in the viewers' memories and with the young girl at the centre of it still presumably trying to get on with her life? That's perhaps debatable, but it certainly made for gritty, compelling above-average TV drama.

score 8/10

Lejink 16 February 2017

Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw3640973/