Review
Lucan review
– stick with this wild documentary to the end and you will be astonished
Fifty years
ago, Lord Lucan murdered Sandra Rivett then disappeared. This surreal series
follows the victim’s son as he hunts down the fugitive peer – and ends up
somewhere totally unexpected
Rebecca
Nicholson
Wed 6 Nov
2024 22.00 GMT
https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2024/nov/06/lord-lucan-bbc-documentary-review
Richard John
Bingham, the 7th Earl of Lucan, was declared dead in 1999, but that did nothing
to halt the highly profitable cottage industry of speculation about him, which
has chugged away since 1974, when he murdered Sandra Rivett, his children’s
nanny, then disappeared.
At first
glance, you might think that this three-part documentary will be another
contribution to this conspiracy-minded canon. But this is not a “have we found
him?” film. I cannot emphasise enough how much it is worth sticking with it
until the end. What unspools is a sometimes tender, sometimes troubling
rollercoaster that ends up in surreal and unexpected territory. There is a fake
monk, catfishing, drag queens and Timothy Leary. You have probably not seen
this side of the Lord Lucan story before.
The first
episode is the most straightforward. The film-maker Colette Camden has found a
new way of outlining what happened on 7 November 1974. A builder in Hampshire
called Neil Berriman thinks he has tracked down Lucan, she explains. (There is
a strong argument that the true subject of the episodes is Berriman, not
Lucan.) Berriman’s mother, who had adopted him, would talk to him about a
“brown envelope” containing information about his biological parents. For
years, he wasn’t interested in even looking for it, but when he did eventually
open it, it delivered a shock: newspaper cuttings about one of Britain’s most
notorious crimes of the 20th century. It revealed that his birth mother was
Rivett, the woman who had been looking after Lucan’s children for mere weeks
when he bludgeoned her to death.
As you would
expect from a modern documentary, and one which involves Rivett’s son, this
shifts its emphasis from the headline-generating exploits of the “fugitive
Lord” – the profligate gambler and drunk, known to his friends, ironically, as
“Lucky” – to the 29-year-old woman whom he murdered, the justice he eluded and
the consequences of this violent crime for those left behind.
Berriman has
made it his mission to learn everything he can about the case – seemingly to
the concern of his family – and episode one provides an overview of what he has
discovered. There are interviews with people who knew Rivett, who knew Lucan,
who attended the crime scene; and with people who, like Berriman, have made the
investigation their primary focus (although without having the same personal
attachment).
It is here
that the series starts to rev up and speed off into the distance, where it
shape-shifts into something else entirely. Berriman has spent years working
with the investigative reporter Glen Campbell, who has reported on the case
extensively (and called his dog Lucan). They have pursued countless theories
and potential sightings. The film joins them as they are on their way to
confront a man they have tracked down in Australia, whom they seem certain is
the aristocrat.
To watch
this with a critical eye is to notice that we, the viewers, cannot see or hear
much of their evidence: a confidential police report that would compromise the
job of the person who leaked it; a detail given off‑camera by Lucan’s brother. There are a lot of people saying “bullshit”. Often, there is no clear sense of
what is true and what the people at the heart of this story want to believe.
(There is, however, a clear sense of how much some of these men will make
excuses for a friend who brutally murdered a woman – a small but deeply
depressing detail.)
It is not a
rigorous investigation so much as an empathic portrait of human obsession.
Camden is evidently fond of Berriman, and her involvement in the story grows
more pronounced as the episodes progress. I kept thinking of The Journalist and
the Murderer, Janet Malcolm’s classic study of journalistic ethics and the
relationship between reporter and subject, wondering to what extent this
documentary exists in a murky area. The programme gives Berriman (and, by
extension, Rivett) a voice – and it’s hard to deny that he deserves that voice.
By the time
Lucan explodes into its surreal final act, you will be feeling astonished and
uneasy about some of the people caught up in the whirlwind of pursuit. This
extraordinary documentary lingers in the mind and leaves a lot more questions
behind it than whether or not Lucan lived beyond 1974.
Lucan airs on BBC Two and is available on BBC
iPlayer
