A dramatic TV series about the true story of Ruth Ellis – the last woman to be sentenced to death in Britain, and hanged on 13 July 1955 – is coming to ITV. It will explore what really happened, as well as the ways in which the justice system failed her.
A Cruel Love: The Ruth Ellis Story will be based on Carol Ann Lee’s bestselling biography A Fine Day For A Hanging, and look at the ultimately unsuccessful campaign to save her from execution, as well as why Ruth did what she did. After all, 50,000 people signed a petition for her clemency, which was sadly rejected, and protestors gathered outside Holloway Prison on the day of her execution.
Our Mid-West Princess wasn't even in the room and she still brought us to tears.
Ruth was prosecuted for waiting for race car driver David Blakely outside a pub in Hampstead, London and shooting him dead. "It’s obvious when I shot him I intended to kill him,” she famously told the prosecutor.
But what the series (and biography) crucially examines is the prejudice that coloured Ruth's trial, as well as the coercive control within David and Ruth's relationship that ultimately led to the crime she committed. David was abusive and had problems with alcohol, and hit her so hard in the stomach that she suffered a miscarriage in January 1955. Many have argued that the abuse she faced at David's hands should've been enough to see her charge amended from murder to manslaughter, but such abuse was not considered as a factor in her sentencing.
"There was more to this crime of passion than Ruth was prepared to say," ITV has said. "Her silence, and resistance to speak of what happened between her and dashing racing driver, Blakely, is far more complex than she admitted.
Lucy Boynton, who plays Ruth, has spoken out about how the show will look at the “misogyny” and “classism” Ruth dealt with in the face of the death penalty.
“You know how unfair and tilted the scales are," she said. "How much it’s going to be weighed by misogyny and classism,” Boynton says of the woman she portrays. “[Ellis] was very, very familiar with that. It’s the agony that so many of us know – knowing the truth and how it should be, versus how it’s going to be, and how prejudice condemns your existence, your freedom, and your fate.”
“There is no question that she shouldn’t have hanged for that, and people knew that at the time,” she told Forbes. “There was such a mass outrage from the general public who tried to protest this and prevent it from happening. You just feel inherent frustration from seeing the extent of the injustice carried out."
The show's screenwriter Kelly Jones has described Ruth as “a flawed, complex, but brave and interesting person who changed our whole legal system”.
It's going to be quite a series. Here's everything we know about A Cruel Love: The Ruth Ellis Story.
A Cruel Love: The Ruth Ellis Story plot
The plot synopsis for the series reads as follows: "A Cruel Love: The Ruth Ellis Story tells the hidden story of Ruth Ellis and exposes the timeless British obsessions of class, sex and death. Set in 1955 in the glamorous and intoxicating world of London club-land, Ruth found huge acclaim, aged 28, as the capital's youngest club manager.
"But her success soon unraveled as she became entwined in an abusive relationship with racing driver David Blakely. On trial for his murder, Ruth was condemned to hang by a system which judged her for far more than her crime."
A Cruel Love: The Ruth Ellis Story cast
Joining Lucy on the show's cast will be Toby Jones, Laurie Davidson, Mark Stanley, Joe Armstrong, Arthur Davill, Juliet Stevenson, Toby Stephens, Amanda Drew and Nigel Havers.
A Cruel Love: The Ruth Ellis Story release date
The series begins on ITV1 and ITVX at 9pm on Wednesday 5 March.
A Cruel Love: The Ruth Ellis Story trailer
Watch below for a taste of Ruth's story, and how the series does her justice like others didn't before her.
