STEPHEN VOLK
I'll Be Watching You
Written by Stephen Volk
(BBC1, 1995) (1 x 1hr)
(Standalone drama in the BBC1 series "Ghosts")
(BBC1, 1995) (1 x 1hr)
(Standalone drama in the BBC1 series "Ghosts")
Watch the entire drama I'll Be Watching You on TouTube (above)
Jack Rudkin, a violent criminal psychopath who reigned London by intimidation and terror in the 1960s, has been locked away in prison with a life sentence. But when a fellow convict stabs him, the chance brush with death gives Rudkin an "out-of-body experience". Subsequently he finds that the prison walls are not the impediment they ought to be. And with this (highly uncharacteristic) new-found psychic awareness, he slowly plans his revenge against those who have wronged him in the past... and in the present.
"Resembled off-cuts of EastEnders rewritten by Edgar Allan Poe" Private Eye
"Looks like the Beeb has hit on another winning formula" Patrick McGuire, letter to Radio Times
"O'Connor is phenomenal here and utterly terrifying... Dobson is on familiar EastEnders ground as the rattled wife of the proverbial dodgy geezer and falls apart with aplomb as Jack's revenge escalates..Director John Strickland keeps everything well grounded but successfully imparts a queazily oneiric quality to Jack's astral excusions, and in all what we have is an entertainingly bleak and occasionally brutal melding of prison drama, gangster movie and ghost story" Ian Holloway, Wyrd Britain
Read the review at Wyrd Britain (22 August 2021)
Directed by John Strickland
Produced by Ruth Baumgarten & Andrée Molyneux
Jack Rudkin.......................Derrick O'Connor
Suzi Rudkin........................Anita Dobson
Les Rudkin.........................David Hayman
Spivey.................................Paddy Joyce
DS Cochrane......................Dominic Taylor
Dylan..................................Dermot Keaney
PCO Messiter....................Oscar James
Pat Rudkin.........................Vivienne Ritchie
PO Pomeroy......................Bernard Latham
"Stonewashed".................Gary Sefton
Helen.................................Sheila Ruskin
Jack Rudkin, a violent criminal psychopath who reigned London by intimidation and terror in the 1960s, has been locked away in prison with a life sentence. But when a fellow convict stabs him, the chance brush with death gives Rudkin an "out-of-body experience". Subsequently he finds that the prison walls are not the impediment they ought to be. And with this (highly uncharacteristic) new-found psychic awareness, he slowly plans his revenge against those who have wronged him in the past... and in the present.
"Resembled off-cuts of EastEnders rewritten by Edgar Allan Poe" Private Eye
"Looks like the Beeb has hit on another winning formula" Patrick McGuire, letter to Radio Times
"O'Connor is phenomenal here and utterly terrifying... Dobson is on familiar EastEnders ground as the rattled wife of the proverbial dodgy geezer and falls apart with aplomb as Jack's revenge escalates..Director John Strickland keeps everything well grounded but successfully imparts a queazily oneiric quality to Jack's astral excusions, and in all what we have is an entertainingly bleak and occasionally brutal melding of prison drama, gangster movie and ghost story" Ian Holloway, Wyrd Britain
Read the review at Wyrd Britain (22 August 2021)
Directed by John Strickland
Produced by Ruth Baumgarten & Andrée Molyneux
Jack Rudkin.......................Derrick O'Connor
Suzi Rudkin........................Anita Dobson
Les Rudkin.........................David Hayman
Spivey.................................Paddy Joyce
DS Cochrane......................Dominic Taylor
Dylan..................................Dermot Keaney
PCO Messiter....................Oscar James
Pat Rudkin.........................Vivienne Ritchie
PO Pomeroy......................Bernard Latham
"Stonewashed".................Gary Sefton
Helen.................................Sheila Ruskin