LESS IS MORE IN MOORS MASTERPIECE

IT'S a big leap from Twinkle to Myra Hindley, but actress Maxine Peake certainly cooked up a credible portrayal of the woman reviled as a murderous monster for the past 40 years in See No Evil: The Moors Murders (ITV1, Monday and Tuesday).

In a dramatisation that brought back the sights and atmosphere of the Manchester suburbs at the time when these heinous crimes shocked a nation to the core, the former Dinnerladies star teamed up with Sean Harris as Ian Brady to recreate the partnership that became the stuff of nightmares.

In the first episode the pair were seen socialising with Hindley's sister Maureen and her husband Dave at each other's homes and out on Saddleworth Moor. Here, unbeknown to the other couple, Brady and Hindley had already buried the bodies of the youngsters they had killed up to that point.

The second part of the drama on Tuesday night saw the evil pair brought to trial and detailed the lasting effect of these traumatic events on the relationship between Maureen and Dave Smith. The makers of this drama rightly steered away from recording the crimes committed by Brady and Hindley in a sensational manner. There were only brief flashes of the axe murder of Edward Evans, which precipitated the downfall of the perpetrators, when horrified witness Dave went to the police to report what he had seen.

Neither was the heartbreaking tape of little Lesley Ann Downey being tortured used gratuitously. The short burst of the music from the tape that was played was just as chilling, as were the reactions portrayed by hardened police officers as they examined the photographs taken by Brady at the murder scene.

Throughout the three hours of the dramatisation the restraint shown in telling the tale added to the horror; while the decision to focus on the Smiths' marriage brought a new dimension to the Moors Murder casebook.

And, while Peake and Harris gave chilling portrayals in their roles and Joanne Froggatt continued to impress as Maureen, it was the anguished performance from Michael McNulty as Dave Smith that I will most remember from this drama. He breathed life into his role as the ordinary Manchester working class lad, who found himself in the middle of a nightmare.

Once Smith had gone to the police, Brady tried to implicate him in the crimes, leading to vilification from the community that went on long after the real murderers were incarcerated. Smith himself eventually ended up in prison after retaliating to one attack. Unable to cope alone with three young sons, Maureen had them put into care, where they stayed until Smith gained custody of them on release from jail.

A short reconciliation between the couple failed, and they went their separate ways, with Smith bringing up the boys with a new wife and new daughter. Maureen died of a brain haemorrhage in her mid-thirties.

Everyone will have taken something different from this masterful piece of television. For me it was the reiteration that murderers have families and, while acknowledging the terrible suffering of the real victims' close ones, they also have their crosses to bear.