Cast: David Tennant, Daniel Mays, Jason Watkins, Alex Bhat, Ron Cook, Gerard Horan, Jay Simpson, Ben Bailey Smith, Barry Ward, Bronagh Waugh, Ross Anderson, Oscar Garland, Cal MacAninch, Joel Morris.

If murder is the most despicable of all acts, then where does the publicising of the manner of execution, of slaughter, sit in the national conscious?

There will always be the call for such re-enactments of the perverse to be excluded from discussion, to be swept under the carpet and forgotten, the preserve of innocent minds to be kept uncluttered with less than pure images. However, such moments in social history should be explored, not for entertainment purposes, but as a dire warning to society that there are such people who teeter on the edge of acceptable behaviour and the depths of depravity to which the murderer will sink, and often enjoy.

Dennis Nilsen will go down in history as one of the most infamous serial killers to have been caught, tried and sentenced, others maybe tread a finer line of notoriety, of dishonour, but it is in the way that Nilsen was exposed for the disreputable, seedy actions, reporting the blocked drain to the council, knowing full well that the human remains he had flushed down, would be found, that will forever send shivers down the spine of even the seasoned criminologists.

It could be argued that Dennis Nilsen was not just the author of his own downfall, but the chief conductor of his cause celebre, and it is in such frightening reveals that we see just how far a person will go to be the celebrity they believe themselves to be. A command of the ordinary, and yet a mind obsessed with necrophilia, dismemberment, murder, arguably and absolutely insane, and yet calculating, devious and possessed of an intellect that most of us would be concerned of owning, this is how Des will remembered, an ordinary looking man, inconsequential, dull, but terrifyingly evil.

To bring such a man to national attention once more, thankfully after his physical presence is no longer one that can haunt the dreams of all concerned, could be seen as adding to that cause celebre, and yet the actual effect is one of driving home the loathing, the sense of disgust at the man and his actions.

Whilst we are perhaps invited by the writers, Kelly Jones and Luke Neal, to understand the depths in which the investigation took, and the sheer force it must have taken detective Peter Jay, played with incredible conviction and sympathy by Daniel Mays, would have put the person on the street into a frame of mind that they surely would have been dragged into darkness with, they would have been permanently damaged by.

The three part series though was at its best when it alluded to the peculiar, the subtle use of chain smoking by all concerned adding to the effect of feeling that the viewer was drowning in dirty and disgusting tar, the haze of admission being clouded by the turn in events as the court case enveloped all within a game of human psychosis and exposure.

What we must never forget, and something we have, as a society, become too embroiled in as our fascination for murder increases, is the name of the victims, not only their names, but they were someone’s son, a mother’s child, they had lives, hopes, dreams, even frustrations and demons, that they were a person who didn’t deserve to end up as part of a sadist’s, a murderer’s celebrity profile.

Des is a dichotomy of television drama, on one hand it furthers the enquiring mind to seek out such abnormality in human society, to keep the devil from inflicting its wrath on those who they see as the victims, and on the other as a warning to keep away, to shun such disturbing creatures for the evil they exude; a separation of wills in which Des is perfectly framed.

A series of events that is steeped in the shadows of human existence, Des is a piece of drama which is not easily reconciled with but should be watched to understand one person’s fall into the despicable nature of murder.

Ian D. Hall