The Gold: The Inside Story; Imagine: Stephen Frears; 24 Hours in Police Custody

“In its final moments, The Gold: The Inside Story dips into how Brink’s-Mat money fuelled the central London property development boom and – via a somewhat circuitous route involving the US drugs trade – rave culture. There’s a whole series’ worth of intrigue there, but we skate over it: the Brink’s Mat story has too many unbelievable elements for one documentary to cope with.”
Jack Seale, The Guardian

“For anyone who came away from the true-crime drama The Gold with the slightly romantic impression that the team behind the 1983 Brink’s-Mat robbery were Robin Hoodesque class-warrior geezers simply fighting the rich establishment, here was a corrective. The Gold: The Inside Story revealed the dirtier, nastier truth, assisted by police footage from the time and the testimonies of detectives who investigated the case.”
Carol Midgley, The Times

“I thought The Gold was a gripping drama but one that couldn’t disguise its admiration for the criminals. Watching the documentary only cemented that unsettling feeling. We heard that the guards were found “in an incredible state of distress” with their clothes cut off them. In the fictionalised version, that was downplayed.”
Anita Singh, Telegraph

“This was entertaining TV largely because Frears seems curmudgeonly but honest (he once said of his film Mary Reilly, “I won’t hear a word in its favour”). Yentob seemed slightly nervous of him as they rode on the ferris wheel in Vienna while revisiting locations from The Third Man, Frears grumbling at the cameraman (“What’s he doing? Is he coming?”). Frears is there making a new drama for HBO starring Hugh Grant and Kate Winslet, so it meant Grant could add his two penn’orth, which is always good value if you ask me. Grant praised Frears’s talent and work ethic. “But?” Yentob asked. “Oh, he’s a grumpy f***er,” he said, knowing such soundbites are what maketh a good documentary.”
Carol Midgley, The Times

“The programme followed the case from the initial 999 call to its conclusion. Some of what we saw was familiar from TV drama: armed police battering down doors, the sullen “no comment” interviews with suspects. But there is something transfixing about seeing these things for real. Also: the look of panic on Dhillon’s face as she was arrested; the phone call to her poor children after she learned that she had been charged with murder, insisting that she was “just helping” the police and would be home soon.”
Anita Singh, Telegraph