But here there's not so much as a can of Silly String. I assumed the Glittercution would feature dry ice, disco lights, and a hundred party poppers going off as his neck cracked. It would be funnier if they showed him decked out in full 70s glam gear throughout, being led to the gallows in a big spangly costume with shoulder pads so huge they get stuck in the hole as he plunges through. Visually, we're talking late-period Glitter, with the evil wizard shaved-head-and-elongated-white-goatee combo that makes him resemble a sick alternative Santa. There are lengthy scenes in which he argues with his lawyer, smirks in court, plays chess with the prison chaplain, weeps on the floor of his cell, etc. The Glitterphile is all over this show, like Hitler in Downfall. He's not just swinging from a rope, mind. It blends archive footage, talking-head interviews with Miranda Sawyer, Garry Bushell and Ann Widdecombe, and dramatised scenes in which Gary Glitter is led into an execution chamber and hanged by the neck until dead. I can't believe what I'm typing: this is a drama-documentary that imagines a world in which Britain has a) Reinstated the death penalty for murder and paedophilia, b) Changed the law so Britons can stand trial in this country for crimes committed abroad, and c) Chosen Gary Glitter as its first test case. Thank God, then, for The Execution Of Gary Glitter (Mon, 9pm, Channel 4), which vividly envisions the trial and subsequent capital punishment of pop's most reviled sex offender so you don't have to. Would they fry him? Gas him? Or pull his screaming head off with some candy-coloured rope? I can never decide, and it often leaves me restless till sunrise. I just can't picture it in quite enough detail for my liking. I remember the last time I had a bad prawn Madras - my Gary was completely annihilated for several days after.nearly had to go and see the Doctor about it.D on't know about you, but sometimes I can't sleep at night for wondering what it might be like if Gary Glitter were executed. But then in this film I suspect that was just one more element of the propaganda. But then in this film I suspect that was just one more element of the propaganda.Īnd as for juries deciding sentences, don't get me started! UK politicians seem to have an incurable compulsion to ape even the pottiest habits of the US. But all the same, it doesn't seem like Gary Glitter's crimes, bad as they were, should warrant the death penalty in any reasonable jurisdiction.Īlso, what the *hell* is the UK doing re-trying crimes committed abroad, following trial and conviction in those countries? If I were Vietnamese I'd be livid at the monstrously patronising attitude that their prison sentence was somehow inadequate.Īnd as for juries deciding sentences, don't get me started! UK politicians seem to have an incurable compulsion to ape even the pottiest habits of the US. I must admit I'd have retained the second one. I thought it was fairly obviously propaganda *against* the death penalty, by assuming the absurd proposition that any sex with someone aged 12 years or younger would be a capital offence (given that this would be statutory rape).Īlso, there was some sneaky propaganda in favour of the human rights act and the EU.įor reference, in the UK rape was a capital offence until the 1840s, as was "carnal knowledge" (to use the legal term) of a child under the age of seven.
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