A new BBC drama starring actor Steve Coogan portraying notorious paedophile and sex offender Jimmy Savile hits screens tonight (Monday, October 9).

BBC One's The Reckoning follows Savile's career - from DJ-ing in music halls in the north of England in the early 1960s to hosting hugely successful shows such as Top of the Pops and Jim'll Fix It - and examines why he never had to face consequences for his actions.

It is believed that Savile had approximately 500 victims who were as young as two years old over his lifetime. 

The controversial series has been equally criticised and praised for its handling of the extremely sensitive subject matter.

Since the revelations about the crimes committed by Jimmy Savile emerged in 2012, there has been a plethora of documentaries exploring his heinous crimes.

Here we take a look at some of those:

When Louis Met... Jimmy Savile

In the year 2000, years before Jimmy Savile was unmasked as a predatory sex offender, acclaimed filmmaker Louis Theroux met and interviewed him at length for a BBC documentary.

Savile was a household name and charity fundraiser as well as Louis' childhood hero. Known for his eccentric behaviour, Louis tried to get under the skin of Savile and get a glimpse of the man behind the public persona.

At one point Theroux raises the rumours of paedophilia which became more widely known after Savile's death, which Savile denied.

For 15 years, Theroux agonised about letting Savile off the hook when they first met.

Louis Theroux: Savile 

Louis Theroux: Savile is a sequel to When Louis Met ... Jimmy, the award-winning film from the year 2000. 

Many praised Theroux at the time – and even more after the truth about Savile emerged in 2012 – for having the courage to ask him about rumours of child abuse. However, Theroux questioned if he was responsible for Jimmy Savile escaping exposure as a paedophile.

He speaks to victims and former employees of Savile, underscored by seeing old creepy clips of the previous documentary, asking each of them what they thought of When Louis Met ... Jimmy.

“I thought: poor Louis – he’s really been hoodwinked,” says a woman abused by Savile as a schoolgirl, while Savile’s secretary for three decades declares that the documentary-makers were fooled by a “good liar.”

After talking to a woman who was abused by Savile while a patient at Stoke Mandeville hospital, Theroux checks: “You feel that I was gullible and silly?” Yes, she does.

The Guardian's Mark Lawson said: "Louis Theroux: Savile is a bleak, strange, compelling film. But with regard to societal and corporate guilt, it feels like a cabin-boy taking the blame for a ship sinking."

Jimmy Savile: A British Horror Story

Reviewing the Netflix programme for The Independent, Louis Chilton said, "Netflix's two-part documentary is a slick and occasionally devastating portrait of Savile's evil life, but the subject matter proves too thorny for the standard true crime treatment."

Netflix's synopsis reads: "TV star Jimmy Savile charmed a nation with his eccentricity and philanthropy. But sexual abuse allegations expose a shocking unseen side of his persona."

As well as colleagues, associates and victims of Savile, some of the public figures interviewed for the series include:

  • Lynn Barber – journalist
  • Ian Hislop – editor of Private Eye and Have I Got News For You panellist
  • Mark Lawson – television critic
  • Martin Young – television reporter
  • Meirion Jones – investigative journalist
  • Roger Ordish – BBC producer of Jim'll Fix It
  • Dominic Carman – journalist
  • Robin Butler – Civil Servant and Private Secretary to prime minister Margaret Thatcher
  • Alison Bellamy – journalist and Savile's biographer
  • Selina Scott – television journalist
  • Marjorie Wallace – investigative journalist and founder of the charity SANE
  • Carine Minne – forensic psychotherapist.
  • Andrew Neil – newspaper editor, journalist and television interviewer

Carol Midgley for The Times said, "... like all documentaries about this disgusting pervert, unpleasant to watch. 

"It is also uncomfortable because, as we know, the nation lauded, hero-worshipped and indeed knighted a psychopathic paedophile."

Writing in the Radio Times, Jane Garvey said: "I was a student in the 1980s and we all 'knew' about him.

"There were always rumours. Some seemed faintly plausible, if unpleasant; others sounded quite outlandish and impossible, surely... In fact, they all turned out to be true. Even the outlandish stuff."

All four episodes of The Reckoning are released on BBC iPlayer on Monday (9 October).

The series will also be broadcast on BBC One on Monday and Tuesday nights at 21:00 BST for the next two weeks.