The Reckoning?

 Well, I watched the first part of the BBC's Jimmy Savile drama (with documentary inserts) The Reckoning, and it was predictably chilling and grimly watchable. Steve Coogan was convincing as the older Savile, giving his usual carefully detailed impersonation, but something more was needed for the younger Savile and that was, it seemed to me, lacking. Coogan, whose face is very differently made from Savile's – much more like Stan Laurel, whom he played so brilliantly in Stan and Ollie –  got the voice and mannerisms right, but conveyed little or nothing of the dark charisma of Savile: the manic grin, the staring eyes, the overwhelming presence and demonic drive. Coogan's version seemed lukewarm, just too ordinary. Every time a photograph of the real Savile was shown, the difference was glaringly apparent. The Savile portrayed by Coogan would never have achieved the all-conquering career that took the real Savile so horribly far. With that dark charisma barely in evidence, it seems simply incomprehensible that so many should have been so taken in by Savile. Perhaps this is a distancing device, to set the whole affair at a safe historical distance, in a time when people were more gullible, and assure us that it couldn't happen again. The BBC has of course a lot of very hard questions to answer about its central role in elevating Savile to the heights. I doubt if The Reckoning will answer them.