Updated: 31 Jan 2021, 13:36
JENNA Coleman fans will see the actress take on a very different role as she stars in BBC One s new crime show The Serpent, which is on tonight (January 31).
The former Emmerdale star plays the partner and accomplice of French serial killer Charles Sobhraj in the new drama.
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What time is it on BBC One tonight?
Episode six is on BBC1 at 9pm tonight.
In it, with a police investigation pending, a nervous waiting game ensues for Charles Sobhraj to return to Kanit House with Marie-Andree and Ajay, however, he might be one step ahead of the operation.
Tahar Rahim as serial killer Charles Sobhraj
Credit: BBC
The problem with
The Serpent (BBC One) is that it is a whodunit where we already know who did it. As this retelling of the true story of Seventies serial killer Charles Sobhraj meandered through the second of eight episodes, no attempt was made to conceal the French ex-pat’s criminality or to cloak him in a veil of mystery. He was a greedy, grubby sociopath preying on naive backpackers travelling to Thailand in search of a hippy paradise.
The strength of the drama instead flowed from its evocation of the Bangkok of half a century ago. The thrill of the tourist trail was rivetingly recreated. But while part two of The Serpent came into its own as a snapshot of the past, it was less compelling when the action switched back to the charisma-free Sobhraj, busy drugging and robbing unsuspecting hostel-hoppers.
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This eight-hour true-crime drama opens with what nowadays might be termed a non-denial denial. Interviewed by a US TV reporter in Paris in 1997, Charles Sobhraj, a French national of Vietnamese and Indian extraction, is questioned about his criminal past. “The question is whether I have committed murder,” he muses – actor Tahar Rahim keeping a serene poker face: “The courts they have decided, no,” is his somewhat evasive assessment. What follows is a vividly mounted, if somewhat partial, fact-based narrative, attempting to uncover the truth of Sobhraj’s nefarious exploits, while drawing a portrait of the seductive persona and skewed psychology behind the carnage.
In the spring of 1975, Sobhraj met Canadian medical secretary Marie-Andrée Leclerc (Jenna Coleman).
Leclerc soon became his main accomplice in many of his scams but had denied being aware of any killings.
In July 1976 in New Delhi, Sobhraj and Leclerc alongside Barbara Smith and Mary Ellen Eather tricked a group of French students into accepting them as tour guides.
Sobhraj then drugged the group, which took effect faster than anticipated and when some of the students realised what was happening to their peers, they overpowered Sobhraj and called the police.
Two years later, he was sentenced to 12 years in prison in India alongside Leclerc.