TV: Thirteen Steps Down by Ruth Rendell

Thirteen Steps Down by Ruth Rendell. A new 2 x 1 hour Drama on ITV1, adapted by Adrian Hodges (‘My Week With Marilyn’). 

Thirteen Steps Down stars Geraldine James, Luke Treadaway, Elarica Gllacher, Anna Calder-Marshall and Gemma Jones. 

Mix Cellini (Luke Treadaway) is a young man with a disturbed past. Brought up by his mother, Mix was almost killed by his drunken step-father when, aged 6, he was accused of attempting to kill his little sister with a ketchup bottle. 

Now aged 29, Mix rents the top floor of St. Blaise House, a dilapidated Notting Hill residence where Gwendolen Chaucer (Geraldine James) a lonely spinster now in her mid-70s, has lived all her life, rarely venturing outdoors and looked after by the nearest thing to friends she has ever had - Olive and Queenie (Gemma Jones and Anna CalderMarshall) also both in their 70’s. 

Attractive and with women easy prey to his charms, Mix has two compelling obsessions… the infamous serial killer of the 1940s and 50s, Reginald Christie of nearby 10 Rillington Place; and supermodel Nerissa Nash (Elarica Gallacher). The former… Mix studies at every opportunity, devouring information from books, magazines and the internet. The latter… he adores, idolises - and stalks! 

Mix manages to tread a dangerous line between reality and fantasy but when part-time girlfriend, Danila Kovic criticises Nerissa, he becomes enraged, unleashing a long pentup violence from within. 

With better luck and different circumstances Mix’s life may well have taken a more positive turn. Instead one heinous act compounds upon another and reality blends with fantasy, until Mix’s obsessions collide and his world implodes. 

A story of loneliness… obsession… and superstition.