Until I Kill You. Television Drama Review.

Cast: Anna Maxwell Martin, Shaun Evans, Amanda Wilkin, Sallie Harmsen, Kevin Doyle, Cory Balmer, Michael Mullen, Jack Franklin, Lucy Thackeray, Steve Edge, Stephanie Street, Matthew Aubrey, Sophie Ford, Gerald Tyler, Clare Foster, William Brand, Laura Morgan, Alice Barclay, Simon Harrison, Claire-Louise Cordwell, Azuka Oforka, Dean Rehman.

The actions of evil men defy comprehension to the overwhelmingly vast majority of the world, but their deeds have far reaching ramifications, and far beyond what any reasonable person could ever understand, or expected to ever even tolerate, let alone be afraid, terrified of just living life.

To delve into a case as severe, as awful as the one suffered by Delia Balmer at the hands of the serial killer John Sweeney and treat it with extreme care for television viewers to gain understanding, not to shock as if instructed to treat the four-part drama as though it is one of sadistic voyeurism, is a balancing act to which sympathy, empathy must play their part but to which highlighting the dangers of such people must also be held with the truth of their appalling act.

What the series does exceedingly well at portraying is the aftermath of such events, the public, for all their statements of repugnance at the time of the report, do tend to forget the victim in any scenario, puzzlingly so if they have survived the horror that was visited upon them; so, it that Until I Kill You respectively points to this as Delia Balmer’s life becomes one of severe difficulty, one of anguish and fear even after the man has been convicted and sent to prison.

The underlaying nature of P.T.S.D., the depression, the anger, all captured by Anna Maxwell Martin with ferocity, the sense of hopelessness that accompanies friends and loved ones who want to support her are portrayed with elegance by the likes of Amanda Wilkin as Leah, and the excellent Kevin Doyle as David, override the despair felt by the viewer as they come to understand the psychological effects of the loss of the self and compounded by the inaction of the authorities who have been tasked to protect the public, to believe them when they say they are frightened, terrified of someone with evil intent on their minds.

Until I Kill You is a series that hits home hard to the viewer, that no matter of how many precautions we may take, there is always one person out there who wishes us to us harm and how we survive that, how we may move on, is down to police, how governments, and the courts take us seriously.

Ian D. Hall