The Sixth Commandment
What to watch on TV tonight
Stop all the clocks. Sarah Phelps has written another tensely compelling script about the lives and loves of the emotionally repressed English.
Rising to prominence with her wonderfully controversial adaptations of Agatha Christie mysteries (she gave the characters grubby human motivations, imagine) she has made her name as the TV writer most willing to lift the stone and energetically sift through the grot underneath.
In The Sixth Commandment, she turns her skills to true crime to tell the story of two much-loved and respected academics preyed upon by a silent killer who presented himself to both of them as a romantic partner.
Peter Farquhar (Timothy Spall) and Ann Moore-Martin (Anne Reid) were neighbours in the pretty English village of Maids Moreton who had the misfortune to meet Ben Field (Eanna Hardwicke), a young man pursuing a career in the church.
An extraordinary depiction of prey and predator, Phelps gets under the skin of those vulnerable to the manipulations of someone intent on conning them and draws, I think, the conclusion that it could be any of us.
Both victims had impressive academic careers behind them, had friends, were loved and supported by family and yet were still targeted by a man who enjoyed watching them suffer.
Behind the carapace of ardent devotion, he groomed not only them but the people around them. Only one family member began to suspect his true motives and helped police to reveal the real story.
As Phelps said at the programme launch earlier this month, true crime dramas tend to focus on our fascination with the monster, asking “Who would do such a thing?” And while Hardwicke’s performance is extremely effective at conveying Ben Field’s charisma and earnest attentions, it’s his victims we get to know.
Their inner lives, relationships and passions are centred here. Timothy Spall plays Peter Farquhar, the beloved retired school master, as a man who believes himself unworthy of love. His heart is open, his generosity to those around him obvious. But that life-long insecurity is the quality that Field hones in on.
We watch as Peter slowly begins to accept the attentions of this bright, religious young man, hardly believing that someone so erudite and physically beautiful could be attracted to him. He resists, his timorousness a wall around him until one day, Ben tells him he’s in love with him. They have their union blessed by a priest friend of Peter’s and then the nightmare begins.
Similarly, Anne Reid as Ann Moore-Martin, is confident, independent, happy enough but perhaps an underlying loneliness allows Field to gain access to her too.
Phelps is careful to show us everything they had before it was all taken away.
The enormity of the crime comes not just from their deaths, but from how their lives were taken, gradually and for the pleasure of the person committing their murder.
It’s the most accurate, sensitive depiction I’ve seen of how this kind of crime harms so much more than the physical bodies of the victims.
The four parts of the story focus mainly on Peter and Ann with slightly less time given to the procedural of the detective story. We meet Ben as they do, Phelps’ deft script and Harwicke’s performance only gradually revealing the covert abuse enacted by Field over many months.
Director Saul Dibb, who collaborated with Phelps on The Dublin Murders, finds horror in the mundane, the beige and pastel palette of Maids Moreton concealing blood red intent. The domestic feels uneasy and unsafe as Field’s campaign of gaslighting and manipulation almost seems to manifest in the walls and furniture.
The Sixth Commandment is truly compassionate, a celebration of the lives of Peter and Ann, but also unflinchingly confronting in its discussion of victimhood and how it is not a state reserved for the weak or pathetic.
As with many of Phelps’ takes on a subject, you’re left with a discomfort you can’t shift. No one writes the soil and bones and indecent flesh of humanity like she does.
The Sixth Commandment starts on BBC One, Monday 17th July at 9pm. The following part shows on Tuesday and the concluding two parts are on Monday and Tuesday the following week. All parts will be on iPlayer after that.