Lifer: Living With Murder (C4)

GWILYN battered his chronically sick wife to death with a cricket bat. She was, recalled the 81-year-old pensioner, a talkative women. "Many times I said I wish she'd shut up, now I wish I could hear her voice."

The second part of Lifer found film-maker Rex Bloomstein revisiting four people sentenced to life imprisonment that he'd previously interviewed inside 20 years ago.

He found a mixture of regret, remorse and, in some cases, a perhaps not unexpected difficulty in re-adjusting to freedom. He didn't ask us to forgive and they certainly can't forget, but to listen and make our own judgements. This was often difficult as even they often couldn't explain why they'd done what they had.

Gwilyn is out on licence, able to be recalled to prison at any time if considered a risk. His daughter visits him once a week, but the overwhelming feeling was of a lonely man who still feels his life sentence was unfair.

Peter tried to kill his wife seven different ways. He contemplated pushing her off a cliff on holiday, he put mercury in her food and kicked a candle over on his way out of the house. He received a life sentence for arson, serving ten years in prison.

"What an immature little boy," he commented on viewing his previous interview with Bloomstein. If he had his time again, he says, he would have walked away from his unhappy relationship with his wife.

His behaviour might have had something to do with being adopted or his Catholicism, he suggested. Now "my life is full of love and hope". We saw him get married again. His bride knew all about his past, found him "a nice caring guy" and "would trust him with my life".

On the other hand, Joyce - given life for her part in the battering of an old lady with a building brick during a burglary - still looked truly tortured. She's married and has a son (you couldn't help wondering what would be the effect her appearing on TV would have on his life), but is still paying for her crime psychologically.

She spent 15 years in prison, had a breakdown and cut her neck in an act of self-harm. She thinks about her crime all the time and feels remorse for the victim's family. "It's not something I'll ever forget, is it?," she said.

For Trevor - given life for stabbing a man - talking about his crime again provoked tears, not just for the crime but the effect on his life today. This once-tough man, who served in both the British army and French Foreign Legion, finds it difficult to forge relationships.

He'll happily sit in the park greeting strangers passing by, but a deeper friendship escapes him. He'd love to have a woman living with him, he says. He desires that so much it's painful. But he can't bring himself to tell them about his past for fear of rejection, or frightening them.

He consoles himself with the thought, "This is where I ended up, Lancashire - it could have been the grave".

Michael Ball, Telewest Arena Newcastle

CHITTY Chitty Bang Bang sung to the tune of We Will Rock You! Only Michael Ball would attempt such a stunt as he celebrates the end of his run as Caractacus Potts in the West End musical (now sung by Gary Wilmot) and the launch of his new album, A Love Story.

There are many empty chairs and empty tables in the cavernous depths of the Arena, but the chunky housewives' choice still attracts thousands of enthusiastic fans to take the chill off a cold Tyneside night.

Carefully casual in a charcoal jacket and grey trousers Ball flirts constantly with his fans and later cheekily invites the audience to grab his shiny-suited bum during a Tom Jones-style Help Yourself romp towards the finale. He only has to run his fingers through his curly mop of hair to earn roars of encouragement. Earlier, he'd adopted a Geordie accent as he delivered the good, the bland and the downright self-indulgent from his impressive back catalogue of 11 gold-rated albums.

Ball's booming voice and easy charm ensures that every song reaches out to his audience and its almost unnerving to see so many women sit transfixed for two minutes before bursting into applause.

His new album mixes new songs with the crowd-pleasers like This Guy's In Love and the late Robert Palmer's wonderful and wistful She Makes My Day. Then extracts from Miss Saigon and Les Miserables and Chitty tribute show Ball at his best. Who needs second-rate Pop Idols when you've got the real thing already?

Viv Hardwick

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