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The thing about David Tennant is you usually think of him as "the good guy." He was THE DOCTOR! Yes, there's the rare psychopath thrown in there, hello Kilgrave! But by and large he's the one bringing the baddies to justice, from killers of children to killers of song, and yes, I'm talking about Broadchurch and Blackpool. So it's interesting when he slips into the role of someone so evil and vile as Dennis Nilsen, the Scottish serial killer and necrophile who murdered at least a dozen young men in the late seventies and early eighties. He literally became Dennis Nilsen. It was beyond eerie. His flat affect, his casual way of discussing murder, everything came together to be the performance of a lifetime so much so that after the first few scenes you had to be remembered that this was David Tennant and NOT Dennis Nilsen. In fact there's one little trick they use in this adaptation that I usually disapprove of but which works to stunning effect here. I'm a stickler for shows that rely on old news footage thus breaking the forth wall. My problem is is that it usually doesn't work. It feels too out of place. Better to replace the footage with scenes you recreate. At first that is what I thought they were doing here. I literally thought the news footage was recreated to have David Tennant as Dennis Nilsen. It wasn't. This blew me away. David had nailed his performance so perfectly from appearance to body language that I couldn't tell the difference between scenes shot for this show and actual footage of Nilsen from the time of his arrest and trial. It's lucky I had the second season of Staged to binge after this three part series so that I could get the image of David Tennant as a serial killer out of my mind. But it's not just Tennant who shines, Jason Watkins, known for his rather deliciously over-the-top characters, many villainous, he's played over the years here brings in a wonderfully subtle performance as Brian Masters, whose book, Killing for Company, this miniseries is based on. The scenes between him and Tennant in the prison where they're having one on one conversations is the heart of this show. Watkins is able to show detachment when he needs to but also subtle disgust, of the level that will keep the channels open to Nilsen but not strip him fully of his humanity. Take it from me, who has watched a LOT of shows about serial killers over the years, this is one you don't want to miss.
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