Murder On The Farm - The Sky Crime documentary

[Erik Narramore]

The appearance of the appeal judge:

Hasn't he retired?  I think that should have been made clear.  A lot of viewers will have come away with the mistaken impression that he was giving the view of the judiciary.  The 2002 appeal judgment was flawed and that view should have been covered, but the scope of the documentary was too wide and they were trying to hit too many topics.

[Erik Narramore]

I take it from this that Louis Theroux has abandoned gonzo journalism and now wishes to pursue a superannuated career as a producer.  While savagely condemning Jimmy Savile, the comedian Jerry Sadowitz called Louis Theroux a "plastic Oxbridge wanker".  While I don't share Sadowitz's view of the former, I have no reason to disagree with his assessment of the latter.  I wish I could just associate the name Theroux with that rather mediocre but interesting writer whose inoffensive travelogues provide bland but enjoyable escapism.

Louis Theroux is plastic because his gonzo wasn't gonzo.  It was a sort of mockery of gonzo.  He was no George Plimpton or Hunter S. Thompson.  The whole point of gonzo is amateur participation, giving a sense of universalism and accessibility to journalism.  It wasn't meant to be mockery and it was only incidentally comedic.

The great George Plimpton:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=18ZkDfVkQGo

However, I will defend Theroux on one important aspect of his oeuvre as a documentary-maker.

He did let his subjects speak.  His documentary of Jimmy Savile wasn't necessarily very insightful, but at least he let Jimmy Savile have free reign and either hang himself or reveal himself, depending on the view you take.

His documentary about Eugene Terre'Blanche is superb because he just let his subject say his piece.

As for the proposed documentary about the Bamber case, we'll just have to wait and see, but I anticipate it will tell us little.  I will watch it though.

[Erik Narramore]

I gave in and watched the series on the NowTV player after taking advantage of their free trial offer.

It's not a documentary series in the true sense.  It's more like a compilation of interviews and montages with voiceovers.  Some of the photographs and interviews are interesting because I haven't seen them before, but there's little substance to it in that it's fairly superficial and doesn't go into much detail, and I was pretty bored by the end of it.  I think it was all a bit confused and disjointed.  The four episodes overall lack a clear narrative or focus and there was no analytical element.

For me, the gold standard for this genre are the World in Action documentaries on the Birmingham Six: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dyo50NHuRq4

Watch that example and be amazed, and then consider: Would such a documentary be made today?  They know what they want to say.  They say it.  They don't get bogged down in issues that aren't strictly relevant, such as the feelings of relatives, etc., or the opinions of frivolous book authors, or the impressions of peripheral figures (James Richards? Barbara Wilson?  Are they crucial witnesses?), or the life and times of TV reporters, or the fatuous tautologies of police officers ("I knew he was guilty.  I don't know what his supporters are playing at", etc., etc., etc.).

Points that stood out (in no particular order):

(i). David Boutflour is a very emotional man.  Nobody else in any documentary on this case I have seen was crying, just him.  I have not seen Colin Caffell cry like that.

(ii). Mr Boutflour claims that Nevill and June were like second parents to him and he used to stay at The White House often during his teens.

(iii). Mr Boutflour again tells us that the silencer was 'sticky' and he saw the grey hair on it.  It must be that Jeremy didn't notice this stickiness or the grey hair when he put that same silencer away in the gun cupboard.

(iv). Colin Caffell does not appear.  Nor does Ann Eaton.

(v). Anthony Arlidge, prosecution counsel at the trial, criticises the judge's summing-up, as does a barrister unconnected with the case who was asked to give his 'objective' view on the transcript.

(vi). In the third episode, a former News of the World reporter clearly admits that Julie Mugford was promised payment before the end of the trial.

(vii). An admission from Julie Mugford that I had forgotten came up again, which is that she claimed to Essex Police that she did supply sedatives or sleeping pills to Jeremy for the purpose of an abortive murder plot.

(viii). Unflattering speculation is advanced about Julie's motives for coming forward.

(ix). James Richards, responsible for perhaps the most ridiculously irrelevant evidence ever given in an English murder trial, is described as a 'friend' of Julie Mugford and defends her zealously.

(x). Likewise Barbara Wilson, whose evidence at trial seemed pointless to me, makes another appearance.  She now claims that Nevill knew Jeremy had robbed the caravan site office.  Yet Nevill did not change his will.  Why?  I thought there was a murder plot and Nevill, June, Julie, Colin, Robert, David, Peter, Ann, Karen, Patricia, and every Phillip, Jack and Maureen between there and Chelmsford knew of it?

(xi). No mention is made of DCI Taff Jones or DS Stan Jones.

(xii). Dr Vanezis does not appear.

(xiii). Mike Ainsley is not asked why he retained evidence in his own home, if he did so.  Isn't it a strange thing for a police officer to take evidence home with him, then destroy that evidence?

(xiv). For the first time, Malcolm Fletcher and Michael West appear.  Their interviews are quite interesting, to be fair.

(xv). Geoffrey Rivlin does not appear, nor does Paul Terzeon.

(xvi). Mark Williams-Thomas is given a soap box and could have gone into some detail about the evidence he came up with, but in keeping with the documentary's lack of focus, he is fairly superficial but does come across well.

(xvii). Chris Bews now says he saw movement at the window, then realised it was moon light.  I think that must be the third or fourth version of that part of the incident that he has given.  At this rate, he'll be telling us in the next documentary that it was Saxby who saw something, as he's the only person present who it hasn't yet been blamed on.

(xviii). For the first time, we hear parts of Jeremy's prison interview with the journalist in 2010.

The whole thing came across to me as a damage limitation exercise, perhaps intended to blunt the impact of new revelations to come (which may be things that are not revelations to us on this Forum, but would be to the public).

It may also be that the lack of narrative rigour is an effort at confusing ordinary viewers of average intelligence, who will come away without a clear sense of what are the issues in the case and will be inclined to just forget about it all.