BritBox wades back into the murky waters of true crime with “A Cruel Love: The Ruth Ellis Story,” a four-part limited series chronicling the life of the last woman executed in Britain. Premiering February 17 with a two-episode debut, the series aims to turn a new lens on a case that continues to fascinate and frustrate more than half a century later. While Ruth Ellis’s name remains synonymous with a specific brand of mid-20th-century British notoriety, this series attempts to peel back the tabloid veneer, examining the woman behind the headlines and the societal forces that sealed her fate.
Lucy Boynton takes on the complicated role of Ellis, charting her trajectory from aspiring club manager to a figure caught in a downward spiral of toxic romance and violence. Set against the backdrop of 1950s London, the series zeroes in on Ellis’s relationship with racing driver David Blakely (Laurie Davidson), a bond portrayed as a volatile cocktail of passion and destruction. This isn’t just another procedural rehashing the crime itself; the narrative draws heavily from Carol Ann Lee’s biography, “A Fine Day for Hanging: The Real Ruth Ellis Story,” suggesting that Ellis’s judgment extended far beyond the act itself, tangled up in a web of class prejudice and moral hypocrisy.
Joining Boynton and Davidson are Toby Jones, Mark Stanley, and Bessie Carter. Kelly Jones serves as writer, with Lee Haven Jones directing and Angie Daniell producing. Visually, the series is helmed by cinematographer Des Willie, whose work will hopefully capture the atmosphere of a bygone London.
Whether “A Cruel Love” can truly unearth fresh insights or simply retreads familiar ground will be revealed soon enough. New episodes will drop weekly on BritBox, culminating in the finale on March 3.
“A Cruel Love: The Ruth Ellis Story” is produced by Story Films for BritBox International. Executive producers include Kate Bartlett, Antonia Gordon, and Kelly Jones.
