gets hanged in new controversial film

Thursday, October 29, 2009, 10:32 [IST]
London (ANI): Brit rock singer , who is a convicted sex offender, is hanged in a controversial new film aimed at sparking a new debate on the death penalty. The documentary-style Channel 4 drama, The Execution of , is set in an imaginary Britain where capital punishment has been reintroduced after it was scrapped in 1969.

The film uses real offences committed by 65-year-old Glitter, real name Paul Gadd, and follows the fictitious trial, which saw him jailed for child sex abuse in Vietnam. Scottish actor Hilton McRae, 59, plays the part of the pop paedophile in the film, which is to be shown on November 7.

The film portrays the public outcry and fierce parliamentary debate as the case grips the country, and it ends with the noose going round Glitter"s neck. Channel 4"s research found that 70 per cent of Brits wanted the death penalty back. “The debate around it arouses passions on both sides," the Sun quoted head of documentaries Hamish Mykura as saying.
User Comments
Tom 11 Nov 2009 05:53 pm
Regardless of the acting. Regardless of the crime. The UK is supposed to be intelligent enough to disapprove of a re-introduction of the Death Penalty. After all, the European Court of Human Rights is rather more "real" than the programme makers made evident.
Dave 10 Nov 2009 02:15 pm
I am shocked that so many people want to bring back the death sentence. Innocent people are still put in jail and in other countries that have the death sentence they have even killed people who were innocent and found out after. I agree that people need to be punished and currently some people are not taking committing a crime seriously as some of the jail sentences are too short as not enough prisons have been built to accommodate longer sentences. Is the death sentence really the answer to trying to stop people committing the crimes or can harsher sentences be made. What makes us any less guilty than the criminal if we put them to death are we not also murders then? It's still taking a life.
Mike Boxall 10 Nov 2009 11:27 am
I saw this film when it aired on the 9th November and the Mockumentary is VERY powerful. I wasn't sure on whether or not I wanted the Death sentence to be re-instated as a punishment, but after watching this I definitely do not. Hilton McRae is an extremely good actor, the tears in his eyes when the execution was drawing near made me feel sorry for Gary Glitter, even though I knew it wasn't real and it wasn't the ex-singer. How did Gary Glitter agree to this film? I feel sorry for him, there's a Mockumentary predicting his death if the Death penalty was reinstated. XD
Anya 10 Nov 2009 04:10 am
I hope you watched the dramatisation Allie, in which case you will have seen hanging was a very minor focus within the film, and more about the rights and wrongs of the death penalty, as you stated. I honestly didn't even consider the fact that if it were reintroduced, it would be the injections, not hanging (although hanging is practised in Middle Easten countries as the form of Death penalty- see Saddam Hussien) although it is a valid point. I don't think it had a major impact on the film, and unless you began viewing it with annoyance at the subject it is unlikely to have been the viewer's focal point.
Allie R 05 Nov 2009 05:42 am
HELLLLLO, a mockumentary that is 'intended'to provoke real-life debate over a real-life possibility (the return of the death penalty) should take pains to thus remain as realistic as possible.....i.e. Britain would NEVER, having capitulated to share with America the title as one of the very few 'developed Western nations' with capital punishment, EVER then go so far as to return to HANGING...it would be most likely lethal injection, but NOTHING that could be deemed cruel and unusual, like a noose around the neck...this element is really what does and what would stir massive public outcry (and the drive to minimize/eliminate pain from execution is only thing keeping the death penalty tolerated in the U.S.)...so the incorporation of an absurd element such as bringing back hanging specifically, makes this vulgar piece of TV dramatization exactly that. I am almost 100% positive that the hanging aspect will cloud and obscure any focus on the larger issue(s) at hand of whether capital punishment -as practiced by America- is at its root right, wrong, or practical, even if made free from "cruel and unusual punishment".
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