Richard Madeley reviews The Secret and asks the difficult questions

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Richard Madeley reviews The Secret and asks the difficult questions

May 22, 2016 - 10:48
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Okay folks, it’s use your imagination time. Brace yourselves, because I want you to concoct a truly tragic scenario. Let’s say someone you love and cherish has met a dreadful, tragic end in circumstances so grotesquely horrible it makes all the papers and TV news channels.

Colin Howell (James Nesbitt) in the dock in The Secret

By Richard Madeley

Okay folks, it’s use your imagination time. Brace yourselves, because I want you to concoct a truly tragic scenario. Let’s say someone you love and cherish has met a dreadful, tragic end in circumstances so grotesquely horrible it makes all the papers and TV news channels. It could be a murder or a plane crash or a violent kidnapping where the person concerned vanishes without a trace forever. I’ll leave the details up to you.

 

Now I want you to put it in a box and push it into the past. Pretend it happened, say, 20 years ago. Somehow, you have slowly rebuilt your life. You can never put what happened completely behind you, but you have learned to live with it. You only ever revisit the horror in your mind when you are feeling strong enough to do so, and even then, not for long.

 

Now imagine waking up one fine morning to discover that a TV company is making a dramatized version of what happened. It’ll go out at prime time and millions will gawp at a version of the horror that all but destroyed you. All that buried post-traumatic stress re-surfaces and ignites in an instant. Your true-life nightmare is back with a vengeance.   

 

Well, that’s pretty much the effect of ITV’s superb drama The Secret, which concluded on Friday night, had on those whose lives were shattered by the real-life double murder the series so graphically depicted.

 

The killings were driven by lust and sex. Respectable dentist Colin Howell and his secret lover, Hazel Buchanan, yearned to be together.  So they conspired to kill their spouses and make it look like suicide. And they got away with it for two decades, before finally being brought to justice. The slayings were given an extra twist of perversity by the fact that Howell and Buchanan were pillars of their local church community.

 

Judy and I watched The Secret, utterly transfixed by its portrayal of pure evil. Such self-serving, mendacious sanctimony (‘we’ve sent them to a better place,’  Howell – played with brooding intensity by James Nesbitt – repeatedly intones).

 

Nesbitt should get a BAFTA for his portrayal of a man whose perverted belief in God becomes a psychopathic delusion. And Genevieve O’Reilly, who played Buchanan, was mesmerizing as his docile lover, happy to be manipulated and cajoled into assisting with the slayings. (Both victims were gassed after being drugged and their bodies dumped in a car. Police presumed it was a suicide pact and the truth only emerged when Howell eventually confessed).  

 

But it turns out that Howell’s real-life children, who only discovered fairly recently that their dad murdered their mum, are appalled by the programme. They say it has left them in bits and they weren’t even given the chance to view it before it was broadcast.

 

The Secret was superbly and sensitively made – but should it ever have been shown? Does television have the right to dramatize tragedies when those affected by them are still alive? Relatives of OJ Simpson’s victims, Nicole Brown and Ronald Coleman, are furious with producers of the recent hit TV series about the murders. They say they’ve been ‘re-traumatised’, and I’m sure they have.

 

I’ve been sitting in for Matthew Wright on his topical C5 live debate show and we discussed the issues thrown up by The Secret. That resulted in a truly haunting phone call  from a woman who recently bought her ‘dream retirement home’ with her husband.

 

One evening in front of the TV he suddenly pointed at the screen and said in astonishment: ‘Look – it’s this house!’

 

They found themselves watching a documentary about a gruesome murder committed 15 years earlier in the very lounge they were sitting in. The body was subsequently chopped up into hundreds of tiny pieces and hidden all over the property. Police subsequently found human remains in every single room. To make matters worse, the victim was a child.

 

The For Sale sign was up within 24 hours but unlike the previous vendors, the couple felt obliged to reveal the building’s grisly past. Would-be buyers melted away, revolted, and eventually the place sold at a massive loss. Legal action against the former owners was an expensive failure, too. Naturally, this poor couple are furious with the TV channel which showed a documentary that destroyed their life savings.

 

But on balance, I believe such programmes, be they factual or dramatized accounts, are justified. ITV were entitled to make The Secret, as were producers of the recent OJ drama-doc.  Such stories are firmly in the public domain, and re-telling them in television programmes as well made as these serve a properly useful function. They graphically demonstrate the profound evil into which men and women can sink. Morality tales for our times, if you like.

  

But for the survivors, it brings the dreadful past howling back into the present with a vengeance. Broadcasters should go out of their way show them the utmost support, understanding and consideration.

There are 6 Comments

PhilipStar's picture

Hmmm my personal view is that Love And Hate is better viewing on Friday night, That's not to say they both can't have their viewers. It's actually quite interesting to see two different types of shows on the same time that may both be great viewing if you have the time to watch both.

Kevin O'Sullivan's picture

by LouiseG

I've loved James Nesbitt since the Cold Feet days. Back when he had hair, a lot of it. He also played charming, funny, slightly inept Adam who was left heartbroken when his wife died.
However, his portrayal of the evil Colin Howell has impressed me so, so, so much more.
The deadly dentist pulled off two of the most perfect murders of all time, until God got the better of him and he decided to confess. Much to the huge surprise  of his former mistress Hazel.
Tonight I was gripped as Colin confessed to the killings, wracked with guilt, he lost the plot in from of his new wife and two of his pals from the church. He admitted he was a pervert who sexually assaulted a patient while she was knocked out. He also told how he had committed a huge piece of fraud, taking money from his clients and fibbing over scam to recover gold hidden by the Japanese.
Wife Kyle was remarkably calm when he made his full confession - but then he did tell her years before and the foolish cow stayed with him.
But if Howell was going to go down, then so was Hazel. In fact, he stitched her up a treat from start to finish.
While Colin was determined to see her facing up to her sins, Hazel's new husband deluded Dave refused to believe he had married a totally callous bitch. As she was bailed he told her she was the "most pure person" he had ever met. I dread to think what his enemies are like.
As he and Hazel's children held hands on the beach before her trial, Dosy Dave prayed to God that Hazel was seen as the "innocent victim."
Absolutely no bloody chance. Not once Colin agreed to give evidence at the trial.
Trying to insist she was controlled, Howell well and truly made sure the jury found her guilty - like him.
As Hazel's daughter wailed in court as her mother was jailed, Colin looked rather pleased with himself.
As should Nesbitt, who deserves armfuls of awards for his terrific acting. He was a joy to watch throughout - even if at times it was from behind my sofa.

GeordieArmani's picture

I note your comments Richard and agree to a certain extent, but real life drama has always been the most popular. At the end of the day no one is forced to watch any program that is aired on our screens. It's like newspapers, today's news, tomorrows fish n chip wrappers.

LeceWoody's picture

I do think these dramas deserve to be made. If I were in the shoes of the family, of course I'd have a different opinion, and I count my blessings that I'm not. However, it is history and, good or bad, it cannot be buried in the past.

We could say the same about every time the horrors Auschwitz are featured on the television, in whatever form it be; whether documentary, drama, etc. Or the Moors Murders? 9/11? It's very sad unfortunately, but it also makes good television and piques the interests of people watching, particularly those who are interested in the dramatisation of real crime, as I am. It isn't necessarily a gruesome thing, but the crimes, capture, evidence and courtroom aspects are appealing so viewers can see what actually happened. After all, we have awful news forced down our necks every single day - is it so terrible to want to know exactly what happened?

22000Days's picture

Absolutely agree with everything said by Richard Madeley in his review.

The Secret was compulsive viewing and James Nesbitt was beyond creepy as the psychopathic killer Colin Howell. As a piece of drama it was superb BUT I had to keep reminding myself that this was not just some work of fiction from pen of a mystery writer but based on real-life events in the recent past.

I heard the phone call from the viewer on The Wright Stuff and how devastated she was to learn of her home's horrific past history and I really feel for the relatives of Howell and Buchanan who maybe should have been more involved in the production..

Like Richard I believe that such programmes are justified as The Secret was extremely well made and quite sensitive for such a gruesome subject. It was a nice touch to show the actual photographs of the victims at the end of the series.

James Nesbitt should be applauded for his performance as the super-creepy dentist and who knows, maybe a BAFTA beckons next year.

JoP's picture

Superb portrayal of human frailty skulking underneath the "safety"'of repressive small-town control and, no doubt, well-intentioned but conformist religious beliefs. I wondered about the children. Trauma is a serious issue. Victims are often desperate for insight and a semblance of understanding of what they've experienced. They can disassociate, reinvent themselves to cope and never fully integrate the trauma into their lives. Hopefully there are media procedures to weigh up the impact of trauma against the need for something that is much more than entertainment and creative expression. I would like to think that these real-life dramas provide a service to society, offering an insight and understanding in hindsight once everybody is at a relatively safe enough distance away from the event. The Secret shows that someone (Stuart Urban) was affected by this tragedy enough to have taken an interest in something traumatic that happened to real people. Possibly that interest was at a deeper and more holistic level than previously offered. Maybe it can help all of us to integrate human frailty into our capacity to understand the roles we all play in society. Colin was unwell and Hazel deferred responsibility for living her own life. Two people lost their lives and I can't even begin to imagine what the impact was on the children. Hopefully The Secret acknowledges their painful experience as part of human compassion rather than walking over the carpet that Colin and Hazel would have brushed it under.