The Times, November 11, 1994,by Lynn Truss
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[...] Docudrama just won't go away. I have tried humming 
"Crocodile Shoes" with my eyes closed and my fingers in my 
ears, but still *The Trial of Lord Lucan* (ITV) somehow got 
made by Granada--a docudrama, moreover, about something that 
didn't even happen. To be fair, *The Trial of Lord Lucan* 
was well written (by Peter Whelan), but in a way that only 
makes it worse. People are confused enough about what's real 
and what isn't. This drama opened with Lucan arrested at 
Newhaven, taken into custody denying everything, and the 
"what if?" taken from there. But if had *really* been 
stopped in his tracks, Lucan might have confessed. Or he 
might have offered a much better defence than the one 
patched together retrospectively by the miscarriage-of-
justice brigade, which he was last night obliged to spout.

So did it matter, the jury's verdict (they came out at six-
all)? Not in the slightest. They were not judging Lord 
Lucan, nor even the known facts in the case, but the 
credibility of a fictional Lady Lucan as played by a 
skilfully ambiguous actress (Lynsey Baxter). To sum up, 
however scrupulous its makers may have been, *The Trial of 
Lord Lucan* was all made up, it was a misleading case. yet 
just as "Crocodile Shoes" comes back to you in the bath, the 
images of Lord and Lady Lucan instantly take their place in 
the imagination alongside all the other unwanted data in 
this never-ending story of sad, nasty toffs.



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