{"id":9320,"date":"2021-12-28T18:00:07","date_gmt":"2021-12-28T17:00:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.radiotimes.com\/?p=1541973"},"modified":"2021-12-28T18:24:13","modified_gmt":"2021-12-28T17:24:13","slug":"four-lives-boss-shares-response-of-victims-families-to-true-crime-drama","status":"publish","type":"rss_feed","link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/rss_feed\/four-lives-boss-shares-response-of-victims-families-to-true-crime-drama\/","title":{"rendered":"Four Lives boss shares response of victims\u2019 families to true-crime drama"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>

By Abby Robinson\n \t\t<\/p>

Published: Tuesday, 28 December 2021 at 12:00 am<\/p>

\n\n

BBC true-crime drama Four Lives<\/a> tells the stories of Anthony Walgate, 23, Gabriel Kovari, 22, Daniel Whitworth, 21, and Jack Taylor, 25, who were drugged and murdered by Stephen Port at his flat in Barking, London, between 2014 and 2015.<\/p>\n

The three-part series tells the story from the perspectives of the victims\u2019 families and friends, who campaigned relentlessly for justice following multiple mistakes by the Metropolitan Police, which they described as \u201cone of the most widespread institutional failures in modern history\u201d.<\/p>\n

An inquest ruled that mistakes made during the investigation into Walgate\u2019s death \u201cprobably\u201d contributed to those of Kovari, Whitworth and Taylor.<\/p>\n

Speaking to RadioTimes.com<\/a> and other press about the making of Four Lives, executive producer Jeff Pope said<\/span>: \u201cOur process is to engage very, very early with the families, which we did. And if we\u2019d really encountered a lot of resistance to the idea of doing this drama then we would have abandoned it at that point.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe only family that we couldn\u2019t really establish proper contact with was Gabriel Kovari\u2019s family in Slovakia. We informed them about what we were doing and so they\u2019re aware of it\u2026 but they chose not to be involved.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\""Four\"<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture><\/div>
BBC\/ITV Studios\/Ben Blackall<\/i> <\/span>\n<\/div>\n

Pope explained that he and executive producer Neil McKay worked with the families throughout the process, who have all watched the final product, \u201cwith the exception of the family of Gabriel\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n

McKay added: \u201cWe never quite know how people will react; you have your fingers crossed; you have your heart in your mouth. They\u2019ve trusted you with the most intense, personal experience they will probably have in their lives. And it\u2019s a massive responsibility. And yes, it did go extremely well. Very, very emotional.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI went up to Hull to show the drama to both Sarah [Sakl, Anthony\u2019s mother, and his auntie Kate, and also Anthony\u2019s dad Tom. And I left the DVDs with Sarah and Kate first and went off for a walk around Hull for five, six hours, very nervously. And then I texted her or I think I might have accidentally rung her and she said, \u2018Oh, it\u2019s brilliant.\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cShe said there were a lot of tears; she said they got through one and a half bog rolls. But they were laughing. Jeff and I will say this a lot. We\u2019ve done a lot of these kinds of dramas. It\u2019s a very, very strange thing but in a funny way \u2013\u00a0 cathartic is too strong a word \u2013 but in a way I think it sort of blows the murkiness and the mystery and some of the darkness away.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cSo they\u2019re all very, very pleased with what we\u2019ve done, and with everybody\u2019s work. And it means something to them, you know? You get a good review in The Guardian or the Daily Mail and that\u2019s nice, but it doesn\u2019t count for anything compared to hearing the reactions of the families.\u201d<\/span><\/p>

Four Lives airs over three consecutive nights from Monday 3rd January at 9pm on BBC One, with all episodes on BBC iPlayer from the same time. Looking for more to watch? Check out our TV Guide.<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0Visit our Drama<\/a>\u00a0hub for all the latest news.<\/strong><\/p><\/body><\/html>\n

","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Abby Robinson Published: Tuesday, 28 December 2021 at 12:00 am BBC true-crime drama Four Lives tells the stories of Anthony Walgate, 23, Gabriel Kovari, 22, Daniel Whitworth, 21, and Jack Taylor, 25, who were drugged and murdered by Stephen Port at his flat in Barking, London, between 2014 and 2015. The three-part series tells […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":9321,"template":"","categories":[1,5],"acf":[],"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2021\/12\/four-lives-boss-shares-response-of-victims-families-to-true-crime-drama-scaled.jpg",2560,1707,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2021\/12\/four-lives-boss-shares-response-of-victims-families-to-true-crime-drama-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2021\/12\/four-lives-boss-shares-response-of-victims-families-to-true-crime-drama-300x200.jpg",300,200,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2021\/12\/four-lives-boss-shares-response-of-victims-families-to-true-crime-drama-768x512.jpg",768,512,true],"large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2021\/12\/four-lives-boss-shares-response-of-victims-families-to-true-crime-drama-1024x683.jpg",800,534,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2021\/12\/four-lives-boss-shares-response-of-victims-families-to-true-crime-drama-1536x1024.jpg",1536,1024,true],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2021\/12\/four-lives-boss-shares-response-of-victims-families-to-true-crime-drama-2048x1366.jpg",2048,1366,true]},"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 Abby Robinson Published: Tuesday, 28 December 2021 at 12:00 am BBC true-crime drama Four Lives tells the stories of Anthony Walgate, 23, Gabriel Kovari, 22, Daniel Whitworth, 21, and Jack Taylor, 25, who were drugged and murdered by Stephen Port at his flat in Barking, London, between 2014 and 2015. The three-part series tells…","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed\/9320"}],"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\/9321"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9320"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9320"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}