Muristek
From Four Lives to Joe vs Carole, more and more content is based on recent real-life events. Sometimes the families are onboard – but not all productions are so considerate
Four months after her son’s murderer was sentenced to life in prison, Sarah Sak received an email from the BBC. The 55-year-old facilities manager wasn’t remotely alarmed to hear that the broadcaster wanted to create a drama about the victims of the so-called “Grindr killer”, Stephen Port, who murdered her son and three others after meeting them on gay dating apps. “I just thought it’d be a really good thing to get out there to the public,” Sak says, explaining that she hoped to raise awareness about the dangers of online dating. In January, Four Lives aired on BBC One – eight years after Sak’s son Anthony Walgate was murdered, six years after Port was sentenced.
Sak never worried it was “too soon” to dramatise the events surrounding her son’s death. For her, Four Lives was a way to honour Anthony’s memory, and shed light on the police’s failure to investigate his murder (in December 2021, an inquest ruled that “fundamental failings” by the police contributed to the deaths of Port’s final three victims). Ultimately, the three-episode miniseries was cathartic for Sak, who cried when watching it for the first and second time.
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