{"id":23520,"date":"2022-10-10T23:00:20","date_gmt":"2022-10-10T21:00:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.radiotimes.com\/?p=1717885"},"modified":"2022-10-10T23:35:11","modified_gmt":"2022-10-10T21:35:11","slug":"channel-5s-maxine-doesnt-know-what-it-wants-to-say","status":"publish","type":"rss_feed","link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/rss_feed\/channel-5s-maxine-doesnt-know-what-it-wants-to-say\/","title":{"rendered":"Channel 5\u2019s Maxine doesn\u2019t know what it wants to say"},"content":{"rendered":"

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By James Hibbs\n \t\t<\/p>

Published: Monday, 10 October 2022 at 12:00 am<\/p>

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There\u2019s always an understandable fear when it comes to true crime dramas based on recent real-life tragedies. It\u2019s hugely important to get the tone right, to make sure they\u2019re not in any way exploitative, and to do justice to the victims and those affected.<\/p>\n

There has perhaps been no recent drama as contentious as Maxine<\/a>, and that\u2019s before it even reached our screens. The 2002 Soham murders case, when Ian Huntley murdered 10-year-old girls Holly Marie Wells and Jessica Aimee Chapman<\/a>, was so horrific and has stuck so deeply in our national consciousness, that even the suggestion of a TV drama depicting the events surrounding it has raised eyebrows.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s important to say up front that I don\u2019t think the drama is disrespectful to the victims \u2013 it remains sensitive throughout. In fact, the series doesn\u2019t actually depict them or their loved ones whatsoever, choosing instead to put the focus on the murderer Ian Huntley and, more-so, his then-girlfriend Maxine Carr.<\/p>\n

Earlier this year, Channel 5\u2019s director of programmes Ben Frow said<\/a> of this decision: \u201cI was very interested in telling the story of, who is Maxine Carr? How did she grow up? What was her upbringing? What life circumstances made her the person she was, so that at that crucial moment, she sided with Ian Huntley over the police in the investigation?\u201d<\/p>\n

Frow went on to say that the series is \u201cour story of Maxine Carr\u2019s life and her relationship with Ian Huntley \u2013 it\u2019s not about the Soham murders\u201d.<\/p>\n

\"""\"<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture><\/div>
Jemma Carlton and Scott Reid as Maxine Carr and Ian Huntley in Maxine.<\/span><\/figcaption> Channel 5<\/i><\/span><\/div>\n

I would dispute this \u2013 Maxine is absolutely about the murders. It may thankfully not depict the atrocity, but it does centre all of its action around it. There are brief glimpses of Carr\u2019s life before 2002, but almost everything else is about the local reaction to the girls\u2019 disappearance and the discovery of their murder.<\/p>\n

From the press and police investigating and eventually to the legal system, everything revolves around Soham murders. The series therefore needs to be tactful and thoughtful in the message it wants to make in order to make a dramatisation worthwhile. Unfortunately, Maxine doesn\u2019t know quite what it wants to say.<\/p>\n

It reminded me of the far superior true crime drama Four Lives<\/a>, which aired earlier this year on BBC One. That series also depicted and examined a recent murder case, the 2014-2015 Barking murders, but through a completely different lens.<\/p>\n

As opposed to Maxine\u2019s decision not to depict those grieving at all, Four Lives was entirely about the victims, their friends and their families. It spent some limited time with the murderer Stephen Port, as played by Stephen Merchant, but he was in no way the focus.<\/p>\n

That series had a clear point to make \u2013 it showed us that these four young men all had rich and full lives, families and friends, in order to then examine failings in the police investigation as they sought justice.<\/p>\n

\"""\"<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture><\/div>
Jemma Carlton in Maxine.<\/span><\/figcaption> Channel 5<\/i><\/span><\/div>\n

Perhaps because the creatives behind Maxine were so aware of how contentious it would be, the series never quite gets to any larger point. Instead, it skirts around numerous potential insights, but never fully commits to them.<\/p>\n

Was Carr unduly targeted by the press for Huntley\u2019s actions because of her sex? Was she so willing to lie for him because he had been so abusive in their relationship?<\/p>\n

Both of these questions are briefly laid out but quickly skirted past, with the drama instead choosing to show us more of Huntley, more of the press, more of the police. It never truly settles on what it wants to be, or to say.<\/p>\n

The show\u2019s writer Simon Tyrrell recently said that in writing the series, he was \u201ckeeping the balance on a knife edge\u201d between viewers potentially warming to Carr as much as being repelled by what she did. He said this was a \u201cbig discussion between us all and Channel 5, to ensure we kept that in check\u201d.<\/p>\n

This comes back to the decision not to depict the lives of the victims or their loved ones. It does mean the drama avoids being disrespectful, but if you can\u2019t present those individuals, so central to the story, without being disrespectful, or if you don\u2019t have their approval to do so, then should their story have been dramatised at all?<\/p>

Similarly, if it\u2019s impossible to make an insightful point about Carr without falling off the knife edge, then does the drama not just become an exercise in misery and revisited trauma without any real purpose?<\/p>\n

Maxine will likely not be the series that some feared it would be. And plaudits have to be given to the cast, particularly newcomer Jemma Carlton who puts in a strong and stirring performance in the central role.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s just that in dramatising such a painful point in our national history, Channel 5\u2019s series really should have had more to say about it than it does.<\/p>\n

Maxine continues on Tuesday 11th October at 9pm on Channel 5. <\/strong>Check out more of our\u00a0Drama<\/a>\u00a0coverage or visit our\u00a0TV Guide<\/a>\u00a0to see what\u2019s on tonight.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The latest issue of Radio Times magazine is on sale now \u2013\u00a0subscribe now<\/a>\u00a0and get the next 12 issues for only \u00a31. For more from the biggest stars in TV, listen to the\u00a0Radio Times podcast<\/a>\u00a0with Jane Garvey.<\/strong><\/p><\/body><\/html>\n

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By James Hibbs Published: Monday, 10 October 2022 at 12:00 am There\u2019s always an understandable fear when it comes to true crime dramas based on recent real-life tragedies. It\u2019s hugely important to get the tone right, to make sure they\u2019re not in any way exploitative, and to do justice to the victims and those affected. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":23521,"template":"","categories":[1,5],"acf":[],"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2022\/10\/channel-5s-maxine-doesnt-know-what-it-wants-to-say.jpg",1920,1280,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2022\/10\/channel-5s-maxine-doesnt-know-what-it-wants-to-say-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2022\/10\/channel-5s-maxine-doesnt-know-what-it-wants-to-say-300x200.jpg",300,200,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2022\/10\/channel-5s-maxine-doesnt-know-what-it-wants-to-say-768x512.jpg",768,512,true],"large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2022\/10\/channel-5s-maxine-doesnt-know-what-it-wants-to-say-1024x683.jpg",800,534,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2022\/10\/channel-5s-maxine-doesnt-know-what-it-wants-to-say-1536x1024.jpg",1536,1024,true],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2022\/10\/channel-5s-maxine-doesnt-know-what-it-wants-to-say.jpg",1920,1280,false]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"importmanagerhub@sprylab.com","author_link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/author\/importmanagerhubsprylab-com\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"By James Hibbs Published: Monday, 10 October 2022 at 12:00 am There\u2019s always an understandable fear when it comes to true crime dramas based on recent real-life tragedies. It\u2019s hugely important to get the tone right, to make sure they\u2019re not in any way exploitative, and to do justice to the victims and those affected.…","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed\/23520"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/rss_feed"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23521"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23520"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23520"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}