Dangling On A Thread - The Execution of Gary Glitter.

Last night's Channel 4 docudrama, "The Execution of Gary Glitter", has certainly divided opinion. A quick Google search reveals many who think it is pro- or anti- death penalty, and many others who claim it soberly provides us with both sides of the argument.* I'd argue, though, that it was less about the debate and more about the people who argue over it.

I shan't bore you too much with the details... Real life rock star/nonce Gary Glitter (nee Paul Gadd) is tried for child rape committed in South East Asia, but the twist is that this is in an alternate timeline where the UK has reintroduced hanging for murder and child abuse... (And presumably crimes committed in other countries.) After a vulgar trial and an intentionally short 30-day wait, he then goes to the gallows... And that's it.

But what stands out, as said, are the characters. None of them are savoury. Glitter is arrogant and stupid, his paedophilia (if not his conviction for rape) obvious in terms of his delusional, self-pitying behaviour. True, the real Glitter would probably flounce to the gallows like a latter-day Jack Shepherd, eager for one last bout of attention whoring, if - that is - they really ever did get to hang him. But there's little to engage us with the pig-headed sobbing wretch we are presented with here, even though what is most disturbing about the real Gadd was how easily he won the public over before he was exposed, and still probably could if these events were real.

The rest of the cast is not likeable either, again deliberately. Real life Journos Gary Bushell and Miranda Sawyer send up their respective grubby rabble rousing and lazy broadsheet vapidity with the same glee that drove Davina McCall to be turned into a zombie in Dead Set. Whereas, right wing politician Ann Widdecombe, media hound that she is, doesn't seem to be in on the joke. But it's the solipsistic barristers, pompous judges, dubious witnesses, the jury that tries Gadd not just for rape but what his popular image has come to represent, the whining and mewling and ultimately hypocritical antis, the hysterical and bloodthirsty bully-boy pros and of course a public that seems hell-bent on turning the first execution on British soil in decades into a circus and freakshow, that stand out as monsters. Not the child-abusing kind, mind you, but the kind of monster that finds vicarious delight through the horror of child abuse and feeds off the hate it engenders or which derives a perverse thrill in shedding tears for a pervert. The drama makes one point clear: the society that hangs Gary Glitter is in its own way every bit as depraved and fucked up.

Not all the characters are unlikeable however. The American death row chaplain, flown over to administer to Glitter's final 30 days, is sympathetic and kind, and perhaps the only truly moral figure in the show due to his compassion and honest intentions. While the hangman himself is an interesting figure - impartial and professional, without agenda and motivated only by duty. He stands in stark contrast to the howling mob outside and the shrill, sanctimonious home secretary he ultimately takes order from, who may either be an insincere hack playing to the mob or who is genuinely intoxicated by the fumes of her hellfire sermons, or perhaps a mixture of both.

So far, so good. But ultimately, "The Execution of Gary Glitter" is undermined by its lack of real merit. Whilst the writers may argue that they are simply trying to engender debate, the faint sleaziness of the premise rather does in any claims of serious docudrama making. What one is left with as the trap is pulled and Gadd finally swings is not a sense of outrage or elation, but a cold, bleak and dirty emptiness, like staring into a pit of total despair and degradation for 90 minutes. Apart from lazily fitting into a British tradition of overwrought pessimism-for-pessimism's-sake in drama, literature and media, the show also chickens out by putting Gadd's neck on the line rather than its own. For in the end what really stands out is the script's own cowardice, its own unwillingness to pick a side and stand up for it, come what may.



* And lots of other people who think it is lurid, exploitative trash.