The Sixth Commandment, BBC

The Sixth Commandment has one of the strongest openings of the year. Accurately researched and recreated in line with true events, the first episode of this new BBC series saw an intricate and nuanced love story play out between Peter Farquhar (Timothy Spall) and Ben Field (Eanna Hardwicke).

Peter is an academic and a homosexual man in late age, who has lost any hope of finding love. When restrictions and loneliness imposed on him by his age, his religion and his sexuality are transcended by the arrival of Ben, we root for the two of them, hoping that their nuanced but beautiful corner of the world is preserved and protected.

The way the audience are duped mimics how Ben Field duped his victims. By the second episode of the series, we realise that Ben’s motives are impure and sadistic as he moves on to an entirely different love affair, this time with Ann Moore-Martin (Anne Reid). At this point we implicitly understand that Ben is systematically preying on and murdering elderly victims in the name of God, in order to benefit from them financially.

The second half of The Sixth Commandment takes on a different perspective and flips from showing Ben’s victims fall in love with him, to seeing him arrested and convicted in the courts. It’s a matter of personal preference, but watching Ben at work in the homes of Peter and Ann in episodes one and two does seem to elicit more drama, emotion, character and feeling than the courtroom scenes do. Despite being a manipulator and orator in court, Ben Field meets a satisfying end as he is sentenced to life imprisonment.

The Sixth Commandment’s themes of religion and literature lend it gravity, seriousness and weight and Ben, despite being lifted from real life, is a villain of Shakesperian proportions in this deeply gripping series.