Netflix is set to add one of Britain's best true-crime series this weekend, with David Tennant taking on a very different role.
True Crime is one of the streaming service's most popular categories, even if psychologists have warned about the people who like to relax by watching them.
We've seen stories of horrific murders, family horror stories and crazy robberies, with Netflix delving into the mind of history's most haunting characters through its Mindhunter series.
Serial killers such as Ed Gein and Jeffrey Dahmer have been the focus of some of the streaming platform's biggest mini-series, and its upcoming addition will also feature a serial killer.
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Dennis Nilsen was a Scottish man who killed at least 12 young men and boys between 1978 and 1983, which earned him a life sentence in prison, before he died in 2018.
Nilsen lived in north London and was only arrested when other tenants in his block of flats complained of the smell coming from the drains, where a plumber was able to find human remains.
When he was questioned by police, he admitted to his crimes, with disturbing information coming to light that he would strangle his victims and sit with them for days, before eventually dismembering them.
In 2020, a mini-series called Des was first released, starring the usually jolly David Tennant as the killer, and he's previously explained how he was able to step into the role.
He said: “There is some footage of Nilsen in an interview he did with Granada Television when he was in prison, and he was an avid home movie-maker, some of which survive, so we were able to see those.
“It was a useful starting point to see how he moved and how he sounded, as there are occasional bits of audio of him around, too. And of course the notebooks – he wrote and wrote and wrote in prison.”
Producers reached out to the families of Nilsen's victims and Tennant suggested that sensitivity was a key issue for him before agreeing to step into the killer's shoes.
He added: "When you’re making a story about something that is living history, you must do it sensitively. You are talking about things that are still very raw and we were aware of that every day on set and in the edit.
"We were always discussing this, even down to what cards you put up at the end [before the credits of the third and final episode] to talk about what happened after the event."
The drama series was originally available on Disney and ITV and has a strong 90 per cent rating on Rotten Tomatoes, but this weekend will see a lot of true crime fans exposed to it for the first time, as it lands on Netflix on Saturday 8 November.
Topics: David Tennant, Netflix, True Crime, TV and Film, UK News
James Moorhouse