Boynton Gets the Rope

Twenty-nine-year-old British actress Lucy Boynton, who stood out so smartly in the small-screen flicks The Ipcress File and Why Didn't They Ask Evans?, has been signed to portray nightclub hostess and convicted murderer Ruth Ellis in ITV-TV’s upcoming four-part drama, Ruth.

For readers not preoccupied with studying the detailed history of homicides, Ruth Ellis was the last woman to be hanged in the United Kingdom, back in 1955. She’d been convicted of slaying a heavy-drinking race-car driver named David Blakely, with whom she had begun an affair in the early 1950s. At that time, Ellis was the manager of a nightclub in London’s Knightsbridge district and enjoyed casual relationships with several different men. Not long after she met Blakely, who was three years younger than she, he moved into her apartment—even though he was already engaged to someone else. Ellis soon took up with another bloke, but didn’t cease seeing Blakely on the side. Their association was said to have become abusive, and in January 1955 Ellis reportedly suffered a miscarriage after the driver punched her in the stomach.

That was, it seems, the beginning of the end.

On the night of April 10, 1955—Easter Sunday—the platinum-blonde Ellis tracked Blakely down to a pub in the Hampstead area, and fired five bullets at him from a .38-caliber Smith & Wesson revolver, three of which she shot after he was already down on the pavement, dying. (That gun is now among the exhibits at New Scotland Yard’s Crime Museum.) According to Wikipedia, Ellis was arrested in short order by an off-duty policeman, who heard her say, “I am guilty, I’m a little confused.” On June 20 of that year, Ellis appeared at the Old Bailey criminal court in central London. Her fate was sealed upon being asked, “When you fired the revolver at close range into the body of David Blakely, what did you intend to do?” She answered, “It's obvious when I shot him I intended to kill him.” The jury needed only 20 minutes to return a guilty verdict, which then required a death sentence. Ellis was hanged on July 13, 1955, at age 28.

The Killing Times says Ruth “will be told over two parallel timelines, and reveals secret truths about the case that have remained hidden for decades, poses tantalising questions about what really happened in the months before Ruth killed her lover David Blakely, and sheds light on the life of one of Britain’s most infamous murderesses.” In Reference to Murder adds that this mini-series will be “written by Kelly Jones (The Long Call) and based on Carol Ann Lee’s biography, A Fine Day for Hanging: The Real Ruth Ellis Story (2013).

There’s no word yet on when this drama will be shown.

READ MORE: “ITV Unveils First-Look Image from Ruth Ellis Drama,” by Paul Hirons (The Killing Times).