Congratulations is not a term that is very often associated with domestic violence but I would like to congratulate BBC Three for giving air time to the one-off, made for TV drama entitled Murdered by My Boyfriend. This was a brave attempt to depict in realistic, but not sensationalist terms, the horrendous consequences of domestic abuse. It captured the horror and disappointment of dreamy teenage love becoming the hellish nightmare of domestic violence, often tainted with irony and irrational emotions. How do you hurt so much the one that you love so much? And how do romantic interludes so loudly punctuate the deathly silence of hate, jealousy, terror and pain? I must admit that I started to watch it with a sceptical eye, certain that it would leave me with plenty to criticise about the deficiencies of dramatic licence. However, after 10 minutes or so I was soon disabused of this notion. Despite the chilling subject matter, I found the portrayals of the main characters multi-dimensional and convincing. The story tells of the tragedy of whispering love becoming roaring violence. It is perhaps putting it to too highly to describe the narrative as ‘educational’ but it was certainly informative and it properly charted many of the subtle warning signals that herald an abusive relationship.
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