12 large British crime exhibitions that can now be seen (April 2025)

It is not a spoiler, this Ruth Ellis (Lucy Boynton), the main character in the new crime exhibition with four episodes A cruel loveDied by hanging on July 13, 1955. Ruth was a real woman who committed a very real crime: she shot her beloved David Blakely (Laurie Davidson), on Easter in the year of her death. But what did the nightclub hostess have prompted to carry out such a terrible act?

That is the question behind it A cruel loveBritbox's excellent drama of true crime that researched Ruth's motivations behind David's murder, the subsequent legal proceedings in which the tabloid was dominated, and her death by execution, which is still the last time that a woman was killed in the United Kingdom.

This story has already been told, especially in the film from 1985 Dance with a strangerBut never as absorbing and detailed as it is here. As Ellis, Boynton never plays a woman who has left only a few opportunities in life. The show convincingly calls for a time when the scandal could ruin the call and a crime of passion could captivate an innocent public.