Impossibly, in the 19 years since Madeleine McCann disappeared from her hotel room in Praia da Luz, no TV drama about the case has yet been made.
You might imagine, especially after a decade in the toxic grip of true crime, the unsolved mystery of a missing three-year-old would have been catnip to mercenary TV producers. Especially this missing three-year-old, who, since the day she was taken has been the subject of dangerous obsession for a cult of unhinged, intellectually challenged conspiracy theorists ready to scrutinise every footnote about the case.
Yet, most broadcasters have sensibly elected not to touch it, swerving altogether the inevitable accusations of sensationalism, insensitivity, crass speculation and indulging the morbid, fanatical interest in this child and the parents, Kate and Gerry, who survived her.
Into the breach steps Channel 5, promising to take us into Kate McCann’s interrogation three months into the investigation, as she was named official suspect, “arguida”. Under Suspicion: Kate McCann is a feature-length drama that imagines the McCanns’ darkest days, and consists mostly of long, tedious, dimly lit interviews between the exasperated, exhausted mother and uncompromising translators and police.
