The Reckoning’s Steve Coogan defends "disturbing" morgue scene

Played by Steve Coogan, the series includes real-life first-hand accounts from some of his victims, as well as dramatising some of the well-known figure's crimes.

The fourth and final outing tackles the early 2000s, when Savile made increasingly desperate attempts to protect his dwindling legacy and continue to hide his horrifying truth.

In the episode, we see that journalist Dan Davies (Mark Stanley) is becoming increasingly aware and exasperated at Savile's inability to be forthcoming with the truth.

Stanley's Davies confronts Savile about his way of "constantly giving hints that there's a dark side", referencing Savile's appearance on a game show wearing a sweatshirt with "I'm an animal" printed on the front to, in Savile's words, "give victims fair warning".

Savile goes on to talk about "committing the perfect crime" before talking about death not holding any fear for him.

The episode then includes a flashback to a hospital corridor where Savile is seen wandering by the morgue. He asks the attendants about who they've brought in, to which one of the attendants informs him that it's a 76-year-old woman.

When Savile asks what's happened to her, the attendant says it's none of his business - but we later see Savile has made it into the viewing room, where the family has asked to view her body.

After a minute, the camera turns to the woman's face and then pans out to reveal Savile removing his hand from underneath the cover as he hears a door slam in the distance.

Savile is confronted by the attendant, who tells him to get out of the room and "show some respect" before Savile eventually leaves. In reality, a nurse who worked at Broadmoor Hospital claimed that Savile had engaged in necrophilia with corpses at Leeds General Infirmary's mortuary.

Speaking about the decision to include the morgue scene in The Reckoning, Coogan admitted to RadioTimes.com and other press that the scene was "really disturbing".

He said: "What can you say? It's as disturbing as it looks. I think it speaks to creative problems; it’s been two years making this, and the reason it’s taken so long isn't because anyone got cold feet. It’s diligent, forensic application of trying to make sure all the right decisions are made.

"One of the creative tensions, where there's no right or wrong answer, it just comes down to your opinion about what's the right thing to do.

"There's a tension between showing too much of Savile’s offences and it being grotesque, or sugar-coating them, which is also wrong, so that we don't see the horror of what he did. So you have to strike that balance."

Coogan continued: "You don't want to upset survivors and you don't want to anaesthetise the full effect and the full horror of what he did. So a scene like that is one that there's a lot of discussion about and you come to a collective agreement on things.

"With that morgue scene, there was a certain shot they wanted to do that I didn’t want to do. It was just a detail that I wasn’t comfortable with. So I had a conversation with the director and we came to an agreement on which was the most appropriate way to depict it.

"You make what you think is the best decision, and that doesn’t mean that's the only decision you could have made. But personally, I’m really comfortable, from my point of view, because I'm associated with this and I had to put my name to it, that all decisions were the best ones that were made."

Read more:

• The Reckoning boss says series 'isn't the BBC marking its own homework'
• The Reckoning creators: "How and why did Jimmy Savile get away with it?"

Neil McKay, who wrote the series, also spoke about the decision to include a scene like this one, explaining: "We had discussions about how to film it, about drawing the line. But I had excellent sources about that.

"At Leeds General at that time, the mortuary was literally next to the chapel. And Savile had a room at the infirmary two stairwells up, and he spent a lot of time in that area. And he spent a lot of time, I think, in his way, consoling the bereaved.

"If you read his autobiographies, I invite you to have a look at that, he talks extensively about spending time with the dead. And as we know, he also spoke about sitting for days on end with his dead mother.

"But in terms of that morgue scene, you don’t want to cause distress or show something that's grim, but in the end, if you think about Savile, it's about power."

He continued: "Anybody who's seen or witnessed a dead relative, as I have, when you look at them when they're dead, you think somebody needs to look after that person because they can't do it for themselves anymore. Somebody needs to take care of them. And it's the ultimate violation, I think, to do something like that.

"So it's a decision the way it’s been edited and put together. We think we found the right balance. But I think it would have been wrong and untrue to [not] show him, not least because it’s all there in Savile’s own writing."

If you've been affected by any of the issues raised in this article, visit the NHS website or Victim Support for information and support.

The Reckoning is available to watch on BBC iPlayer and concludes on BBC One on Tuesday 17th October at 9pm. Check out more of our Drama coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what's on.

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