DEBUTING this weekend as part of the Masterpiece Contemporary series on PBS is Place of Execution, a gripping two-part thriller starring Juliet Stevenson and Greg Wise.The show is two stories in one, switching back and forth between the disappearance and presumed murder of 13-year-old Alison Carter in the village of Scardale on the Yorkshire Moors forty years ago, with a contemporary investigation into the murder by crusading TV journalist Catherine Heathcote (Stevenson) whose exposé threatens to unravel when her main subject, the much-respected former policeman George Bennett, who made his name on the case, mysteriously stops cooperating with her. Although Bennett got a conviction, Alison’s body was never found. And as the contemporary investigation threatens to open old wounds and tear apart the close-knit community who seem to have never really got over Alison’s disapperance. To make matters worse for Heathcote, she finds herself hemmed in by pressures from a suspicious, demanding boss and her attention-seeking, troubled teenage daughter.
The show is especially involving during the scenes dealing with the original disappearance, as the tension ramps up against the stark beauty of the Yorkshire moors. Class and tribal loyalties combine to stymie the investigation of the young and very intense George Bennett, (Lee Ingleby). Also appearing are Greg Wise as Phillip Hawkin, Alison’s haughty and arrogant stepfather, and Tommy Clough as Bennett’s garrulous sergeant.
The deeper Catherine digs into the Alison Carter case, the more disturbing it appears. Two suspects turned up early in the investigation: Alison’s schoolmate Charlie Lomas (Mikey North), who had a secret cache of photos of her but no apparent connection to her disappearance; and Alison’s uncle Simon (Ryan Anthony-Jones), a known sexual offender. Briefly detained by the police, he died of exposure shortly after his release — an apparent suicide.
Then there is the behavior of Bennett, who by all accounts was a little too eager to wrap up the case. Did he cut corners to reach a solution? Did he, as Catherine begins to suspect, fabricate evidence? Is his sudden silence, 45 years later, an admission of guilt? And could he be behind the torching of the warehouse where evidence of the crime was stored, including shocking photographs of Alison?
As Catherine begins to grasp the long-held secrets of Scardale, her quest not only turns the Alison Carter case upside down, but it begins to make sense of the tormented journalist’s own troubled past.
Place of Execution airs on your local PBS station from 9-10.30pm on Sunday, November 1st. Highly recommended.
