How frightened is the BBC of Jimmy Savile? Very, according to The Sun, who report that “nervous BBC bosses have pushed back the broadcast of a controversial drama amid fears of a backlash.”
The Reckoning, with Steve Coogan as Savile, was announced in 2020 with filming taking place in late 2021. The Reckoning featured in many “upcoming TV” round-ups as a winter 2022 attraction, although the BBC never confirmed this.
Last November, though, the Daily Mail reported that The Reckoning had been “pushed back to 2024 amid public backlash.” This referred to protests from, or on behalf of, Savile victims after pictures emerged of Coogan filming in Savile’s signature tracksuit and long yellowish hair. (Those Savile victims directly dramatised in the films were consulted during production and, at their own request, some met Coogan on location in character.)
The Sun story largely rehashes the Mail piece, though, with the new claim that the drama has been moved because of the coronation in May of King Charles III: as Prince of Wales, he was a friend and supporter of Savile, who he commended in a letter as a “bloke who knows what’s going on”.
So, has The Reckoning been “delayed” and, if so, why?
Certainly, the BBC has good reason to be wary of Savile. It quickly went from getting as much of him as possible – 225 episodes of Jim’ll Fix It (1975-95), 265 Top of the Pops appearances (1964-2006), several hagiographic programmes after his death in 2011 – to not wanting any of him at all.
A BBC Two Newsnight report on the presenter’s prolific sexual abuse of children and adults was pulled from air in 2011, leading to internal and external inquiries and the retelling of Newsnight’s story in ITV’s Exposure: The Other Side of Jimmy Savile. This began the revelation of the scale of Savile’s offending, including, according to a BBC-commissioned report by retired judge Dame Janet Smith, two assaults during the recording of the last Top of the Pops when Savile was 79. His hundreds of shows for the BBC are now barred from ever being repeated.
There was some surprise, then, when the BBC announced The Reckoning. Possibly as a gesture of distance from material in which the corporation strongly features, the drama is produced by ITV Studios, made by two leading talents in UK fact-based TV: executive producer Jeff Pope (Mrs Biggs, Little Boy Blue, The Walk-In) and writer Neil McKay (Appropriate Adult, The Moorside, Four Lives).
(Disclosure. Having witnessed and reported to the BBC a 2006 assault by Savile on a colleague, I was contacted by McKay during the research phase and spoke to him.)
Both ITV Studios and the BBC declined to speak on the record about the “delays” in The Reckoning, beyond a BBC statement: “We are currently in post production for transmission later this year. An exact [2023] date will be announced in due course.” That in itself is striking, as it is the first time the BBC has ever committed to a date; it never commented on the “2022” or “2024” reports.
Having followed the progress of the drama since it was announced, this is my guess as to what happened. Three or four years is a long time from pre-production to transmission, but lengthy editing periods are always more likely in dramas based on controversial factual cases, where dozens of versions of scripts and rough cuts go back and forth between producers, lawyers and editorial policy departments. With a subject such as Savile, where numerous individuals and institutions are implicated, the inspection of lines and images is especially extreme.
In this hypothesis, The Reckoning, already controversial when commissioned, became even more sensitive after adverse publicity. If 2024 were ever seen as a safer date, it would have rapidly become clear that this is likely to be the year of a general election, always a time of extreme scrutiny for the BBC, when such a project might inflame political enemies.
This made 2023 the next logical landing zone, until last September, when the Queen died and was replaced by an associate of Savile. Those familiar with the scripts insist that they feature Charles “minimally”. But this still leaves the possibility that this minimum was enough to panic BBC bosses who, David Dimbleby has said, are far more frightened of the royals than of the government. I would bet several licence fees that sensitivities around coronation scheduling are a vivid issue at the BBC.
So, following the BBC’s latest statement, it seems likely that The Reckoning is chalked in for the last quarter of 2023, its grim content feeling more wintry than summery. But suppose the general election happens this year, or there are further protests from Savile victims? Perhaps no one involved in The Reckoning quite reckoned on how multiply problematic Savile’s return to BBC One might be.
