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aion-rsa · 5 years ago

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Dennis ‘Des’ Nilsen is Far From David Tennant’s First Psychopath Role

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David Tennant’s transformation into serial killer Dennis Nilsen for ITV’s Des was unsettlingly convincing. It wasn’t just the physical resemblance, though under that hairstyle and behind those 1980s glasses frames, the similarity was remarkable. It was also the posture, the unwavering eye contact, and the voice; mumbling and unconcerned, listing the terrible details of Nilsen’s crimes as if reciting a recipe instead of multiple brutal murders.

As Nilsen, Tennant pulled off what every actor hopes to in a real-life role – a disappearing trick. He slid clean inside the role, leaving no trace of The Doctor, or Simon from There She Goes, or the demon Crowley, or Alec Hardy, or his funny, self-deprecating public persona. For those three hours on screen, he was nothing but Nilsen.

The role is one in a long line of on-screen psychopaths for Tennant. He might be best loved around these parts as excitable, convivial romantic hero the Tenth Doctor (who, as noted below, also had his villainous moments), but David Tennant has been playing bad guys for decades, starting with a 1995 episode of ITV police procedural The Bill…

Steven Clemens in The Bill, ‘Deadline’ (1995)

In his early 20s, David Tennant went through a rite of passage for the UK acting profession: he landed a part in The Bill. And not just any old part on The Bill, this one was a peach. Tennant wasn’t cast as some kid DC Carver caught snatching a granny’s handbag – he played psychopathic kidnapper and murderer Steven Clemens.

When 15-year-old schoolgirl Lucy Dean (an early role for Honeysuckle Weeks) was abducted after receiving threatening phone calls, the caretaker from her school was brought in for questioning. What followed was a high-stakes game of Blink between Tennant’s character and Sun Hill Station’s finest. Clemens toyed with the police, first denying responsibility and then refusing to tell them where he’d stashed Lucy. It’s a big performance, as suits the soap-like context, but even then Tennant made a good villain, revelling in his evildoing. Clemens came a cropper eventually when Lucy was found alive and the investigation linked him to the kidnap and murder of another schoolgirl. Watch the whole episode here.

Barty Crouch Jr. in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (2005)

Skipping forward a decade, Tennant’s most mainstream cinematic baddie to date is Death Eater Barty Crouch Jr. in the fourth Harry Potter film. Crouch Jr. was the Voldemort supporter who engineered Harry’s entry into the Triwizard Tournament, and turned the winning trophy into a portkey that delivered Potter straight into Voldemort’s waiting arms (well, Voldemort was sort of soup at that point, but bit of magic and voila – arms!).

Crouch Jr. did all this while magically disguised as Brendan Gleeson’s character Mad-Eye Moody, so Tennant’s actual screen time in the film is pretty limited. In his few short appearances though – in a flashback to his Ministry of Magic trial and after his disguise is rumbled – Tennant makes a real impression as the unhinged, tongue-flicking baddie.

The Time Lord Victorious in Doctor Who ‘Waters of Mars’ (2009)

The majority of the time, the Tenth Doctor was a sweetie – big grin, lots of enthusiasm, two hearts full of frivolity and love. Every so often though, Ten’s genocidal, survivor-guilt past rose to the surface. Never cruel, never cowardly, no, but sometimes a bit… murdery and drunk on power.

One such occasion was his brutal extermination of the Racnoss children in Christmas special ‘The Runaway Bride’, and another was his Time Lord Victorious trip at the end of ‘Waters of Mars’. In the special, Ten changes the events of a fixed point in time to save the lives of Captain Adelaide Brooke (Lindsay Duncan) and her surviving crew, bringing them back to Earth in the TARDIS instead of leaving them to die. Realising the serious ramifications of his timeline meddling, Brooke confronts the Doctor about his arrogance, and puts the mistake right. It doesn’t take Ten long to come back to his senses, drop the god act, and realise he’s gone too far, and it’s David Tennant’s ability to convincingly play both the power-crazed god and the devastated man that makes him one of the best in the business.

Kilgrave in Jessica Jones (2015)

David Tennant played a bonafide demon from actual hell in Good Omens, the TV adaptation of Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman’s 1990 novel, but Crowley still had nothing on his Jessica Jones character.

The first series of Marvel’s Jessica Jones on Netflix won acclaim for its depiction of a coercive, abusive relationship through a comic book fantasy lens. David Tennant was Kilgrave, a villain with the power of mind control following experiments conducted during his childhood. Instead of using his power for good (convincing people to pick up litter, be kind to animals, etc.), Kilgrave exerted his will on the world at large, bending those around him to his sick desires. When he stumbled upon super-powered private investigator Jones, he didn’t stop at using her super-strength for his own ends. Kilgrave also used his powers to keep Jones hostage and manipulate her into coerced sex. Jones’ battle to escape Kilgrave was powerfully acted by Krysten Ritter and David Tennant, who had the range to show Kilgrave’s ‘charm’ as well as his chilling megalomania.

Staged: BBC Comedy Confirms Sheen & Tennant’s Double-Act Greatness

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Doctor Who: David Tennant reflects on his final line

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Cale Erendreich in Bad Samaritan (2018)

Director Dean Devlin followed up weather-disaster flick Geostorm with Bad Samaritan, a dark psychological thriller about a small-time crook who gets into the bad books of a wealthy sicko when he stumbles upon his dark secrets while burgling his house. Misfits’ Robert Sheehan plays the burglar, and David Tennant plays the loaded psycho whose obsession with technology earned him the nickname ‘Evil Bruce Wayne’. Cale Erendreich is a Patrick Bateman-like moneybags psycho with a sick taste in torture. Overall, the film itself isn’t a huge amount of cop, but boy, does Tennant commit.

Dr Edgar Fallon in Criminal ‘Edgar’ (2019)

Netflix’s multi-lingual European series Criminal takes the best bit of Line of Duty – the police interview scenes – and strips away everything else. Every episode has a new case, a new interviewee, a new lead actor, and a team of cops trying to break them within a limited time frame.

Kicking it all off with the first UK episode of series one (a second run is available to stream now) was David Tennant as Dr Edgar Fallon. You’ll have to watch the 42-minute episode to know whether or not Fallon is guilty of the crime about which he’s being interviewed (the rape and murder of his 14-year-old step-daughter), but Tennant is chilling and magnetic enough as the well-spoken English doctor to keep you guessing.

Dr Tom Kendrick in Deadwater Fell (2020)

When a tragedy occurs in a Scottish village, suspicion falls on those closest to the victims. David Tennant plays local GP Tom in Channel 4 drama Deadwater Fell, a four-part series available to stream on All 4, about how a small community responds to a terrible event. Is Tom really the perfect family man he appears to be, or is there something else under the surface? Without giving anything away in terms of plot, Tennant moves fluently between the roles of victim and villain in the audience’s mind as this empathetic, clever miniseries twists and turns.

Dennis Nilsen in Des (2020)

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This starring role is the culmination of years spent clocking up experience on how to unsettle on screen. As real-life Scottish serial killer Dennis Nilsen, David Tennant is chillingly perfect. It’s both an on-point impersonation and a disquieting performance that conjures up this peculiarly banal killer. Tennant is ably aided by co-stars Daniel Mays and Jason Watkins as, respectively, Nilsen’s arresting officer DCI Peter Jay and biographer Brian Masters. It’s a triangle of excellent actors at their best, making for a compelling three-parter.

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gyrlversion · 6 years ago

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UKs longest-serving inmate could soon walk FREE

A forgotten serial killer who slayed a priest with an axe may soon be walking the streets freely.

Patrick ‘Pyscho’ Mackay is one of the UK’s longest-serving inmates who confessed murdering up to eleven people, including a four-year-old boy.

Names such as West, Shipman, Sutcliffe, Nilsen, Hindley, Brady, have all dominated the headlines in recent years however, in 1975 it was Mackay that left the UK horrified following a spree of gruesome murders across London and Kent.

Remarkable photos show the various demented faces of the criminal named ‘the most dangerous man in Britain’ at his court trial, a hacked-up body of a priest in a bathtub, and the cold dead eyes of a deranged killer staring directly into the camera.

Portrait of a psychopath: Mackay (left)in a photobooth with chicken he took from his mother, while he poses in a photobooth again (right)

From left to right: Harold, Patrick, Marion and Ruth Mackay at home in the 1950s. Behind the scenes, Harold would abuse his children

Detective Chief Inspector Peter Croxford (left) with the pry bar used to kill Ivy Davies, one of Patrick Mackay’s victims. Another one of his possible victims, Heidi Mnilk (right), who was stabbed in the neck

The Daily Mail (left) reported the case in the mid 70s and pictured Mackay (right) on the front cover and described him as the ‘mad killer the law let go’

These stomach-churning photos form part of John Lucas’ new book Britain’s Forgotten Serial Killer: The Devil’s Disciple, a detailed and dramatic account of the notorious Nazi-obsessed killer and his victims.

‘Convicted of three killings, suspected of another eight, Patrick David Mackay was dubbed the Monster of Belgravia, the Devil’s Disciple and simply The Psychopath amid a torrent of public anger at the way he had repeatedly slipped through the grasp of the criminal justice system,’ explained Lucas.

‘When the authorities added it all up, Mackay had been incarcerated, sectioned or otherwise detained at least nineteen times before he was finally brought to justice for his horrific killing spree.’

Lucas said it was a cased that left the nation stunned and that Mackay could soon be out walking the streets freely after being allowed to change his name.

A young Patrick Mackay (pictured above) playing with stolen garden gnomes in his garden in Gravesend. It was reported that neighbours also saw him playing with birds

A ten-year-old Patrick Mackay (pictured above) playing with sand figures while on holiday with his parents. The new book reveals that Patrick had struggled to come to terms with the death of his father and would often tell them he was still alive

On the left, an extract from Mackay’s criminal record shows he was a crook from the age of 11. On the right, Mackay’s charge sheet for the murder of Father Anthony Crean

‘Yet the extraordinary story of this 22-year-old Nazi-obsessive, who hacked a priest to death with an axe and killed two elderly women during a remorseless robbery campaign on the upmarket streets of West London, was all but forgotten by Christmas of 1975.

‘It had been expected to run and run. Among the unsolved cases Mackay had apparently confessed to in prison – but later denied under questioning – was the murder of a teenage nanny on a train and the heinous double killing of a widow and her four-year-old grandson.

The book also reveals that Mackay had also been suspected of murdering a popular café owner from Essex. Ivy Davis’ body was found at her Westcliff-on-sea home with multiple wounds to her head, as well as a ligature around her neck on 4 February 1975.

In 2006 Essex Police questioned 68-year-old Basildon man who was arrested as part of a cold case review. She was last seen leaving the cafe on the evening of 3 February, 1975 and was discovered by her daughter the following day.

‘While police had taken the initial decision not to charge Mackay with those crimes, it seemed to be only a matter of time before more evidence came to light. But the charges never materialised.

Murder victims Stephanie Britton and her four-year-old grandson Christopher Martin. Mackay allegedly admitted to killing them but later refused to confess

Mackay admitted to killing pensioner Sarah Rodmell whose blood is seen (left) on her doorstep in east London. Police are pictured right searching land close to another victim, Ivy Davies’ cottage

The book cover of ‘Britain’s forgotten serial killer’ (left) written by John Lucas about Patrick Mackay (pictured right in police mugshot)

‘Perhaps it was because, despite his alleged gloating to fellow prisoners, Patrick Mackay did not really kill all those people. Yet while he languishes in prison to this day – still too dangerous to be released – every one of those crimes remains unsolved.’

Mackay was born in 1952 and was raised in an abusive household and regularly beaten by his alcoholic father. It was not long before Mackay was committing criminal acts himself, particularly arson, animal cruelty, theft and stealing garden gnomes.

Medical professions saw that he had psychopathic tendencies and he was sectioned in 1968. He was released four years later and would soon be responsible for the death of at least three people.

The murderer quickly developed a fascination with Nazism and often referred to himself as ‘Franklin Bollvolt the First’ and frequently spoke of his desire to ‘wipe out’ the elderly.

The team investigating the murder of Ivy Davies, who was murdered with a pry bar Around thirty boxes of paperwork were collected

Cafe owner Ivy Davies (left) was battered to death in her front room while widower Isabella Griffiths was murdered after a St Valentine’s Day meal with friends

Father Anthony Crean (pictured above) was murdered by Mackay after he was walking in a field near to his home

He was convicted of three killings. Mackay’s first identified victim was 87-year-old widow Isabella Griffiths, who was strangled and stabbed at her home in Cheyne Walk, Chelsea. Next was Adele Price, 89, strangled at her home in Lowndes Square, Kensington.

Finally, Mackay killed Father Anthony Crean in a frenzied attack using his fists, a knife and an axe in the picturesque village of Shorne, Kent, leaving the 63-year-old’s mutilated body floating grotesquely in a bath full of bloody water.

Patrick Mackay: A timeline of his killings

Patrick Mackay had between three and 11 victims as not all were confirmed. He was sentenced to prison for life in 1975.

1965: Institutionalised for trying to set fire to a Catholic Church

1967: At the age of 15 Mackay was diagnosed as a psychopath by a psychiatrist, he was committed to Moss Side hospital for four years

1972: Released from hospital

1973: Befriends Father Anthony Crean and soon begins stealing from him

1973, July: Kills Heidi Mnilk, an au pair girl, by hurling her from a train near New Cross

1973, July: Mary Hynes beaten to death in her Kentish Town apartment

1974, January: Stephanie Britton and her four-year-old grandson were stabbed to death at Hadley Green, in Hertfordshire

1974, January: Tosses a homeless person from Hungerford Bridge

1974, February: invaded the Chelsea home of Isabella Griffith, strangling her to death and knifing her

1974: Bludgeoned a 62-year-old tobacconist to death

1974: Sarah Rodwell, age 92, was beaten to death on her doorstep in Hackney

1974: Ivy Davies, slain with an axe

1975: Kills Father Crean with an axe

1975, March: Strangles Adele Price

1975 March 23: Arrested

1975: Confesses, but not all crimes were charged to him

The date was 21 March 1975. Two days later Mackay was arrested.

But Mackay’s horrifying crimes probably did not end there.

Although he was charged with five counts of murder, Mackay’s convictions were only for three counts of manslaughter due to diminished responsibility.

The other two cases were allowed to lie on file, meaning prosecutors believed they had enough evidence but a trial was felt not to be in the public interest.

The first victim in this group was 73-year-old widow Mary Hynes. She was choked and stabbed at her home in Willes Road, Kentish Town. Second was 62-year-old shopkeeper Frank Goodman. He was battered with a piece of metal pipe at his premises in Rock Street, Finsbury Park.

Finally, there were five unsolved murders, which Mackay allegedly confessed to while in jail, later telling police he was not responsible. The victims in those cases were 18-year-old Heidi Mnilk, Stephanie Britton, Christopher Martin, Sarah Rodmell and Ivy Davies.

Mackay also admitted to killing an unidentified homeless man by pushing him into a canal. The body was never found.

Despite his alarming crimes and the sordid accusations surrounding Mackay, Lucas is concerned that the serial killer may soon be released from prison without the general public’s knowledge.

If he really did kill eleven people, he would be the UK’s fifth most prolific serial killer.

‘Mackay faded into obscurity in the minds of the British public, far more than other serial killers of his era,’ added Lucas.

‘In fact, he has been able to change his name and win the right to live in an open prison – the first step on the road to eventual freedom – without a shred of publicity surrounding the decision.

‘Far from being one of Britain’s most notorious inmates, he is not even recognised as being the country’s longest-serving living prisoner.

‘That title was wrongly held by murderer John Massey before he was released in May 2018, even though he had been jailed seven months after Mackay in May 1976.’

Lucas said that most assume the flamboyant and infamous Charlie Bronson now holds the record, but that is not the case.

‘Instead, it is the forgotten serial killer, Patrick Mackay, who has been inside the longest.

‘It is worth noting that Mackay may have had some influence over his low profile.

‘Unlike other killers such as Dennis Nilsen and Ian Brady, Mackay is not known to have ever replied to a letter sent by ‘fans’ or ‘pen pals’ who would inevitably have sold any response to the newspapers.

‘Perhaps it was a calculated move, perhaps it was a result of poor literacy.

‘The question remains: was Patrick Mackay really one of Britain’s most prolific serial killers, as detectives originally suspected?

‘That mystery is what this book sets out to examine.’

John Lucas’s Britain’s Forgotten Serial Killer: The Devil’s Disciple, published by Pen and Sword Books, is due for release this July.

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