New ITV drama A Cruel Love tells the story of Ruth Ellis, the last woman to be hanged in the UK, and veteran star Nigel Havers has a real-life link to her tragic story

Actor Nigel Havers appears in the new true crime drama A Cruel Love, about the life of Ruth Ellis, and the veteran star has an incredible real-life link to her story.

Nigel, who is best known for his roles in Chariots of Fire, Coronation Street and the sitcom Don’t Wait Up, stars as his own grandfather, Justice Cecil Havers in the series. Cecil was the judge who sentenced Ruth Ellis to death after she was placed on trial for the murder of her lover, David Blakely, in 1955.

A Cruel Love executive producer Kate Bartlett reveals she and her fellow producers asked Nigel if he would appear in the series but weren’t sure he would say yes. “We had lots of conversations going, ‘Oh, do you think he might?’ And he leapt at it,” she says. “We couldn’t quite believe it. So it was just amazing that he was playing his grandfather, it was extraordinary.”

Actor and TV presenter Nigel stars as his own grandfather in A Cruel Love
“He was full of little observations about what his grandfather would do,” adds director Lee Haven Jones. “Apparently his grandfather used to write all the time, he’d constantly be taking notes, and he liked to bet on the horses as well. So there were all of these little details and while we didn’t include all of them, it was nice to know that the role was imbued with a sense of authenticity.”

Nigel and his brother Phillip with their parents and grandfather Mr Justice Havers ( 
Image:
Getty Images)

A Cruel Love stars Lucy Boynton as Ruth Ellis, the 28 year old nightclub manager who became embroiled in a passionate but abusive relationship with racing driver David Blakely (Laurie Davidson). Their affair was marked by what is now recognised as domestic violence, and it came to a tragic end when Ruth shot and killed David outside a Hampstead pub in April 1955. She was immediately arrested and put on trial for his murder.

“It was such a tumultuous relationship, but they couldn’t stay away from each other,” Lucy explains. “Within weeks of meeting they were already living together. They seemed to be magnetised to each other. It’s hard for us on the outside to understand it but it was clearly intoxicating. And then it quickly turned very sour. He was very jealous, yet also unfaithful. He would promise her marriage, then disappear for days or weeks, telling all his friends they weren’t together anymore, then would return to her begging her to take him back. His physical abuse became so bad her friends were convinced he would kill her.”

Lucy Boynton and Laurie Davidson star as tragic couple Ruth Ellis and David BlakelyThe series recreates Ruth’s trial overseen by Justice Havers, 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.

“The days I filmed in court were very intense because for legal reasons and for accuracy, all dialogue is verbatim from the court transcripts. So we got a totally vivid experience of what that trial was like. How frustrating it was to sit through the misinformation and misrepresentation of Ruth’s experience. Because David Blakely was a member of the upper class it was deemed inappropriate to talk about his ugly behaviour, so none of the physical and emotional abuse he inflicted was mentioned, and therefore the case was entirely imbalanced and Ruth misrepresented.”

“It was an incredibly intense shoot,” she continues. “The scenes of domestic violence were also hard to let go of when we wrapped.”