I then read Carol Ann Lee’s incredibly researched book [A Fine Day For Hanging: The Real Ruth Ellis Story] and uncovered all this incredible hidden history that we didn’t know about Ruth Ellis and the story that we’re now telling on screen.”.
It has been 70 years since Ruth Ellis became the last woman in the United Kingdom to be hanged, and leading actress Lucy Boynton believes it is the right time to revisit her story in drama series A Cruel Love.
While Ruth’s story has been recreated on screen before – most notably in the acclaimed 1985 movie Dance With A Stranger, starring Miranda Richardson and Rupert Everett – A Cruel Love is the first time that Ruth’s family has been involved in a production about her.
The series also recreates Ruth’s trial, where it took the jury just 20 minutes to convict her of murder, and Lucy says the court scenes were some of the toughest for her to film.
Starring alongside Lucy in the court scenes is veteran actor Nigel Havers, who plays his own real life grandfather, Justice Cecil Havers, who presided over Ruth’s trial.
