Maxine; Katie Price: Trauma and Me

“Judged solely as a piece of drama, it works effectively. The performance from Scott Reid as Huntley is particularly strong. Steve Edge is solid as Brian Farmer, a journalist of integrity who recoils from the tabloid frenzy surrounding the case and sees it for what it is: a devastating loss for two families. And therein lies the problem. Two families forced to deal with the most horrendous events. Why dredge it up? It is hard to avoid the suspicion that this is ratings-chasing entertainment for true-crime aficionados.”
Anita Singh, The Telegraph

“The three-part serial Maxine tries to avoid any suggestion of exploiting the crime, by focusing solely on the killer Ian Huntley and his girlfriend Maxine Carr, who lied to give him an alibi. Holly and Jessica themselves are never seen. But the effect is to erase them from their own story — and place Carr herself at the sympathetic heart of the script.”
Christopher Stevens, Daily Mail

“It’s a perfectly serviceable script and the two leads – newcomer Jemma Carlton as Carr and Line of Duty’s Scott Reid as Huntley – wring every bit of truth and nuance out of it that they can. The fundamental problem with Maxine is that not all murders have much to teach us. In concentrating on her part in covering up the murders (of which she had no knowledge, though growing doubts), which is not comparable to the actual killing of two children and which was easily knocked down by the police once they got their act together, the drama skates perilously close to equating her behaviour with Huntley’s and following the age-old tradition of blaming the nearest woman for what a man has done.”
Lucy Mangan, The Guardian

“In fairness, Maxine was a restrained, unsalacious affair that kept Holly and Jessica largely out of it, even though their innocent, unspoken presence was heavy in every scene. The drama’s purpose is in trying to understand what made Carr cover for Huntley, thus far suggesting she believed he was innocent. But the thing is, I don’t care. Her motivations don’t interest me. As for him, and his snivelling, cowardly attempts to claim both children died ‘accidentally’ in his house, he is unworthy of a nanosecond of airtime. I just hope he didn’t watch it and enjoy the notoriety.”
Carol Midgley, The Times

“Maxine may have simply provided a fresh angle for a broadcaster eager to feed the public’s seemingly insatiable appetite for true-crime drama. But compared with, say, Ryan Murphy’s luridly gratuitous Netflix series Dahmer – Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story, the opening episode of Maxine was a model of responsibility and restraint.”
Gerard Gilbert, The i

“Price deserves the greatest of sympathy for the terrible events in her life. This programme was an attempt to discuss how those things had affected her. In the way of all these kinds of shows, she spoke about herself and then met fellow sufferers, including a woman who had started a PTSD charity. But when Price began railing against media intrusion, the programme lost its way. Her career is built on tabloid coverage. Openness is valuable when talking about mental health, but here Price barrelled off into complaining about her ex-husbands, and giving details of custody issues involving two of her children. Dragging them into this cheapened a worthwhile programme.”
Anita Singh, The Telegraph