The Reckoning: Steve Coogan on why Jimmy Savile story needs to be told

The Reckoning – a new drama about the crimes of serial sex offender Jimmy Savile – launches on the BBC tonight, and the show’s star Steve Coogan has been discussing why it’s a tale that needs to be told.

The Reckoning is a four-part series that charts the rise of TV presenter Jimmy Savile, as well as the hundreds of sexual assaults he committed during his time at the top, many of them against minors.

Savile hid in plain site and befriended the rich, famous, and powerful to help make himself untouchable. It’s a tough watch, but an important one that focuses on his crimes, but also gives Savile’s victims a voice. You can read our review of the series here.

After the screening Dexerto attended, Coogan participated in a Q&A alongside BBC Chief Content Officer Charlotte Moore, in which they addressed the many controversies surrounding the show.

The Reckoning: Steve Coogan on why Jimmy Savile story needs to be told

Both were asked why they chose to turn the Savile story into a TV series, to which Coogan responded that it’s a format that can get to the heart of the truth.

“The kind of scrutiny you get with drama, that you don’t get with a documentary, meant that you could get under the skin of Jimmy Savile,” said Coogan. “And the reason that’s a good thing to do is that to bring him to life again, is to learn about how these things happen, to stop them happening again. To see how he operated.

“You can illuminate things that you can’t with witness testimonies and public enquiries and all the rest of it.”

BBC boss on “setting events in emotional and historical context”

The BBC’s Charlotte Moore addressed the same issue, stating: “We’ve had lots of conversations about subject matter and how to deal with it. We did of course talk about if this is a story that needs to be told. And I think we all felt – and I’ve worked on documentaries about the subject; I worked on Louis Theroux’s film, the second film he made about Savile. I also commissioned Olly Lambert’s very brilliant film in 2016, which was the testimony of several survivors. So it was a subject that I knew a lot about.

“When we started talking about should we be doing this story, we all discussed why we would do a drama on it, and we all felt that drama has a really unique ability to set events in their emotional and historical context in a way that I don’t think documentary does quite the same. So I think we all felt there was a story to tell here.

“Of course, I thought about [the fact that] the BBC is part of this story, and what does that mean? Just because the BBC is a big part of this story, it’s not a reason to not tell this story. So when [producer] Jeff [Pope] and [writer/producer] Neil [McKay] started talking to me about it… Neil had started doing some research, and was really interested in exploring just how did this happen.

“We all felt – the how it happened, and the context in which it was allowed to happen and he got away with it, and the powerful connections that he forged and how he used his celebrity status – we thought it was really important to explore and chart that. And the vulnerable people that he picked on. Again, by then we knew this wasn’t a few – this was hundreds of people that had been targets.

“Just because it’s challenging, just because it’s difficult, I think we all felt that it was incredibly important that we continue to talk about this. I don’t think it’s OK to say Dame Jane [Smith, who conducted an independent review of Savile and the BBC] dealt with this and we’ve made documentaries – I’m afraid, I think, the subject matter of this series is something that we have to continue to talk about.”

You can read our review of The Reckoning here, while Steve Coogan talks about portraying Savile here.