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Sydney Morning Herald
16-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Sydney Morning Herald
The incredible true-crime story that changed UK legal history
A Cruel Love: The Ruth Ellis Story ★★★½ 'I am guilty; I'm a little confused.' So spoke Ruth Ellis, a 28-year-old Welsh-born nightclub hostess after firing five bullets into her lover, racing driver David Blakely, one Easter Sunday evening in 1955 London. Blakely's death spurred a notorious chapter in UK legal history and won Ellis enduring fame as the last woman to be hung in Britain. Her execution brought to the boil swelling opposition to capital punishment (permanently abolished for murder in 1969) and played a part in the introduction of the 'diminished responsibility' defence, allowing the verdict of manslaughter. It also shone a light on the alarmingly swift process to convict Ellis and the treatment of women, particularly those in the lower classes. It's the latter that A Cruel Love: The Ruth Ellis Story, ITV's magnetic, if occasionally hollow, four-part true-crime drama, magnifies with swish, hypnotic eloquence. Loading Adapted from Carol Ann Lee's biography, A Fine Day for Hanging: The Real Ruth Ellis Story, the series is so beautifully shot that the lighting, set and costume hues and poetic positioning of faces and body turn every frame into an Edward Hopper painting. The camera is either pulled back for beautiful scene compositions (the watery natural light in Ellis' prison cell, the smoke-fugged velvet-curtained nightclub where she hosted men, the ordered establishment of the wood-panelled courtroom with a male-only jury), or extraordinarily close-up. The hair's breadth's away lens is why this series belongs to actor Lucy Boynton (Bohemian Rhapsody). She plays Ellis, a tiny red-lipsticked platinum blonde and single mother-of-two, with a steely and compelling delicacy. There are times watching this series when I searched her face, its pores millimetres from the camera, for any glimmer of why Ellis refused, initially, to defend herself after her arrest. Boynton's facial movements are minute yet intensely perceptible, revealing inner turmoil and Ellis' long-honed resolve to endure lesser treatment. It's clear, if a little drawn out over the series' 160-minutes, that Blakely (Laurie Davidson), who meets Ellis at the Little Club in Knightsbridge which she managed, is a piece of work. Depicted as a privileged, hard-drinking and violent manipulator, his chaotic presence, which included repeated beatings, lasted two years before Ellis shot him. It's clear why but the people who could have helped mitigate her actions, and sentence, are everywhere – and equally at fault.
The Age
16-07-2025
- Entertainment
- The Age
The incredible true-crime story that changed UK legal history
A Cruel Love: The Ruth Ellis Story ★★★½ 'I am guilty; I'm a little confused.' So spoke Ruth Ellis, a 28-year-old Welsh-born nightclub hostess after firing five bullets into her lover, racing driver David Blakely, one Easter Sunday evening in 1955 London. Blakely's death spurred a notorious chapter in UK legal history and won Ellis enduring fame as the last woman to be hung in Britain. Her execution brought to the boil swelling opposition to capital punishment (permanently abolished for murder in 1969) and played a part in the introduction of the 'diminished responsibility' defence, allowing the verdict of manslaughter. It also shone a light on the alarmingly swift process to convict Ellis and the treatment of women, particularly those in the lower classes. It's the latter that A Cruel Love: The Ruth Ellis Story, ITV's magnetic, if occasionally hollow, four-part true-crime drama, magnifies with swish, hypnotic eloquence. Loading Adapted from Carol Ann Lee's biography, A Fine Day for Hanging: The Real Ruth Ellis Story, the series is so beautifully shot that the lighting, set and costume hues and poetic positioning of faces and body turn every frame into an Edward Hopper painting. The camera is either pulled back for beautiful scene compositions (the watery natural light in Ellis' prison cell, the smoke-fugged velvet-curtained nightclub where she hosted men, the ordered establishment of the wood-panelled courtroom with a male-only jury), or extraordinarily close-up. The hair's breadth's away lens is why this series belongs to actor Lucy Boynton (Bohemian Rhapsody). She plays Ellis, a tiny red-lipsticked platinum blonde and single mother-of-two, with a steely and compelling delicacy. There are times watching this series when I searched her face, its pores millimetres from the camera, for any glimmer of why Ellis refused, initially, to defend herself after her arrest. Boynton's facial movements are minute yet intensely perceptible, revealing inner turmoil and Ellis' long-honed resolve to endure lesser treatment. It's clear, if a little drawn out over the series' 160-minutes, that Blakely (Laurie Davidson), who meets Ellis at the Little Club in Knightsbridge which she managed, is a piece of work. Depicted as a privileged, hard-drinking and violent manipulator, his chaotic presence, which included repeated beatings, lasted two years before Ellis shot him. It's clear why but the people who could have helped mitigate her actions, and sentence, are everywhere – and equally at fault.
Telegraph
01-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Telegraph
Lucy Boynton: ‘Women have always been scrutinised with a crueller, harsher lens than men'
'I've been waiting to talk about this for a year,' confides actress Lucy Boynton. She's finally unburdening herself in the surroundings of a central London hotel, not far from the West End haunts where her latest screen alter-ego became the capital's youngest nightclub manager, before meeting racing driver David Blakely at the Little Club in Knightsbridge. Ruth Ellis was only 28 in July 1955 when she was hanged for the murder of Blakely, becoming the last woman executed in Britain. Her tender age is troubling Boynton as she struggles to make sense of the disturbing case ahead of an ITV drama, A Cruel Love: The Ruth Ellis Story, in which she plays the doomed club hostess. 'I was 29 when I was researching the role and already older than she was, already getting to live more life than her,' whispers Boynton, 31, incredulous at the injustice that sent Ellis to the gallows after a trial lasting just one day. 'For anyone who makes it to their thirties, their twenties then feel like a foreign land. I was so relieved to leave mine behind, so the idea that she was put through all of that at such a painfully young age and it ends there, in such unfair circumstances, it's excruciating.' Violent womaniser Blakely – one of a series of men who abused Ellis during her life – had punched her in the stomach, causing her to miscarry their unborn child just 10 days before his own death. He was leaving the Magdala pub in Hampstead with a friend on April 10 1955, when Ellis fired five shots at him (one of which missed; a sixth ricocheted off the road, injuring a bystander) and was immediately arrested by an off-duty policeman. Much has been written about the case over the decades with the 1985 film Dance with a Stranger, starring Miranda Richardson and Rupert Everett, winning critical acclaim. But this version, based on Carol Ann Lee's biography, A Fine Day for a Hanging: The Real Ruth Ellis Story, excavates hidden truths that offer a fresh perspective, specifically on the judicial process – or lack of it by contemporary standards. That Ellis fired the shots was never in doubt but the four-part drama – made with the blessing of her family – casts greater light on the role of Desmond Cussen, another lover, who gave her the loaded gun and drove her to the murder scene. Although a diminished responsibility defence was introduced in 1957, partly as a result of this case, capital punishment wasn't abolished until 1965. Ruth Ellis casts a shadow to this day. Preparing for the role, says Boynton, 'was an incredibly intense experience and affected me more than I could have anticipated. It took me a year to stop grinding my teeth. 'For some reason, at the beginning, I was determined to be devoid of emotional attachment, thinking that would enable me to play her more truthfully. However, the reality is that when you're investigating a story like this, there is no neutrality. There is no ability to be detached. So my notes progressively went from a black-and-white analysis to, 'and then this f-----g guy, and then this b-----d judge'.' Although the violent scenes between Boynton and Laurie Davidson, who plays Blakely, were carefully choreographed, some were so intense that the New York-born, London-raised actress was left shaken. 'Your brain can know it's fiction, but when you are in a physical scene, your body doesn't – you're being strangled and fighting for air, so it releases the same chemicals. It's a small insight into what the reality must have been and it was horrendous. I'm cautious to talk about it in terms that are too heavy because I'm so aware it was pretend, that I was safe, I went home that night.' She recalls building up to the shattering final scene with hangman Albert Pierrepoint's noose looming, as an 'abyss of anticipation'. 'I love horror films and the gothic genre – I've played those kind of villains of fiction [in supernatural films The Blackcoat's Daughter, I Am the Pretty Thing That Lives in the House and Don't Knock Twice] – but this is the greatest horror, the darkest character, because it's true, and she was a real woman.' Key locations in the production included the murder scene itself and the Old Bailey, with actor Nigel Havers poignantly playing the role of his grandfather, Sir Cecil Havers, the original trial judge who passed sentence. 'Sitting in that courtroom was sickening,' says Boynton. 'It was exhausting to listen to such far-fetched rhetoric being sold as fact and scientific diagnosis. Ellis knew that at the time, but had to put up with it, whereas women now have much more of a voice. We have always been scrutinised with a crueller and harsher lens than men, and I don't know if that has let up. 'Had Blakely been held accountable for his actions, there would be no Ruth Ellis case. Yet still the domestic violence figures are horrendous, it's an epidemic. While filming, and now watching it back, I've found myself hoping for a different outcome, foolishly, but hopefully.' Mother-of-two Ellis was partly tried on her image, defiantly appearing in court with freshly bleached, coiffured hair despite the concerns of her defending counsel. Boynton is an uncanny ringer on screen; the iconic platinum curls and bright lipstick are not a world away from her own look today, although she presents a stylishly understated take. Wearing a youthful pleated skirt and waistcoat with cream blouse and bow tie, it's hard to believe Boynton has been on our screens for nearly two decades. 'I just feel like I kind of cheated the system by getting to have such a wonderful job that I love so much,' she says, crediting her journalist parents, former Telegraph travel editor Graham Boynton and Adriaane Pielou, for keeping her focused in an industry littered with child-star casualties, while also seeding a sense of social justice. 'I've been really lucky in the version of the world I've been exposed to. It's always with questioning and challenging and curiosity. 'I was fortunate too, as a child, in the jobs I got to do which were welcoming and magical; Miss Potter [in which, at the age of 12, she played the young Beatrix Potter], Ballet Shoes, Sense and Sensibility, all those actors that I had the total good fortune to work with.' That includes Renée Zellweger for Miss Potter, currently back on screens in Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy. 'I can't wait to see it,' beams Boynton. 'I actually saw her at the Oscars years ago and I regret not going up to her.' From juvenile roles, her career continued through films such as coming-of-age comedy-drama Sing Street and Kenneth Branagh's Murder on the Orient Express, until her role as Freddie Mercury's former girlfriend Mary Austin, in 2018's Bohemian Rhapsody, plugged Boynton into rock band Queen's global fanbase and sparked a real-life romance with co-star Rami Malek, which ended in 2023. 'The film definitely changed things for me,' she recalls. 'Everyone who did it feels such a core connection to the band and to Freddie; it's locked in time. I get a thrill every time a Queen song comes on.' Boynton – who is now in a relationship with Scottish musician Murdo Mitchell – was set to follow it with another rock biopic. In early 2020 it was announced she would be playing Marianne Faithfull – who died this January – in a feature to be directed by Ian Bonhôte, whose Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story won Best Documentary at this year's Bafta Film Awards. Production was derailed by the pandemic and, in 2022, Boynton stepped away from the project, citing creative differences. '[Faithfull] was just everything that you would hope she was, and more,' says Boynton today. 'Very funny, and so unedited – at least by the time I met her. She had lived so much life by such a young age; a real force of a woman and someone who wouldn't be constrained by preconceived notions of her. Wouldn't allow other people to define her and kind of didn't care if they tried. Because she knew who she was, and that's just f-----g cool.' The parallels with how Ellis also lived her life aren't lost on Boynton, who reflects on how the passing of time has opened up more freedoms for women: 'I'm constantly aware of my privilege as a contemporary woman and I'm really grateful to be alive now. Although I hope in 70 years' time women will be looking back at our era thinking that we are barbaric and archaic – and how much things have improved.'
