Calling the film Till Justifiable Homicide Do Us Part would have been a case of getting away with murder.. You just hope, for the peace of her conscience, she had no involvement in getting this film made.The US audience for whom it was tailored would have known the outcome of the trial and retrial, but for we who hadn’t read the article, the answer was always in the title. At one point, the woman’s two youngest sons watched a sensationalist trailer for a programme about her plight, including footage of Mom being restrained by six prison guards. At another, her daughter refused to testify against her mother in front of those intrusive court TV cameras. As in the oeuvre of Merchant Ivory, it was the costume designer who had much the greatest say in defining each character, which was bad news for the accused – the 10-year experiment known as the Eighties proved beyond doubt that you can’t feel sympathy for any woman with that many red power suits.The film aimed for moral high ground by criticising other televisual coverage of the case. Portrayed here as someone happy to go the extra mile to defend her good name, it’s plausible that this mini-series was her idea of a good PR stunt But the evidence suggests otherwise.

(Not for the first time in the history of American television, removal of excess cardboard called for uncorking of excess ketchup.) But with husband and rival erased, we were left with no choice but to hang out with the spurned woman for the 90-minute trudge down the home straight.And what a woman. Even as you read, meetings are being held to discuss turning this very television review into a nine-hour docudrama. This mini-series was parcelled out over two nights on the grounds that a straight three-hour down-in-one is medically inadvisable. The first episode storyboarded the deterioration of happy, successful marriage between two people remarkable chiefly for their wealth. Knock a few noughts off their bank balance and the story would never have been told of how he took on a young secretary, the wife went tetchy, he left her, she went nuts, he divorced her, she went ballistic, he married the secretary, she went nuclear.
There was a huge sense of relief as two characters, lifeless long before the time came for them to be shot, were extracted from the equation. Pretty soon, the public’s insatiable appetite for rapid-turnover drama will bring schlockbusters based on the newspaper headline, the photo caption, the business card, the message on the answering machine. Till Murder Do Us Part (BBC1) admitted up front it was based on an article in Los Angeles Times magazine.

Time was when a TV movie would have the decency to base itself on a book. My wife and my mother-in-law are not saying ‘You’re a fucking kook, Julian.’ They’re saying ‘You’re a vibe, Julian Keep it together.’ “. His singing voice has always been attractive, if not technically exceptional. Its transcendent virtue was that it was incapable of sounding insincere, even when the lyrics baffled you So it is with his conversation. In the end, I am rather sorry to leave.Going downstairs, he cocks a leg across the Mothercare safety gate.

“I’ve just got to pursue it until I’m so insane that they put me away I have back-up. I look at my mother-in-law and I fancy her second in the world after my wife. If she can be that gorgeous in her mid-60s then I don’t fear getting old because my wife will look amazing.”At 37, Cope’s soul seems as boyish as it ever was There is not a shred of reserve or calculation in his words. “Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.” Julian remembers the second Teardrop Explodes single, “Bouncing Babies”.

“Even after that they were still talking about getting another singer in That was persistence on my part. And Will Sergeant [from Cope's great Liverpool rivals Echo & the Bunnymen] became good-looking! He was actually known as Baked Beans on Toast Face You can do it I will persist!”I feel I’ve got more time now. Everything was a hurry before, because I felt I was getting older But now, I think, by the time I’m 50 I could do all this. And none of my dreams is impossible.”The key, declares Cope, is persistence. Another writer, Israel Regardie, is hauled off the shelf: “Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence.” Not talent or genius or education. I have a lot to do before I’m 60 – nothing unbelievable, but the most important thing is that I stated unequivocally that I was in a visionary state. I don’t want to piss people off, I hate people being David Icke about it, but I’ve waited a long while to speak out And it’s an utterly practical trip.