A Is for Acid

Did You Know?

• The opening scene depicting Haigh's childhood was filmed in Saltaire, West Yorkshire.
• The police station scene was filmed at Wetherby Council Offices.

Plot

John George Haigh grew up in a Yorkshire village with overprotective parents who belonged to the strict Plymouth Brethren. His father instilled in him the belief that their family was among "God's elect," but Haigh turned to petty crime as an adult. He married Beatrice "Betty" Hamer, who became pregnant. While serving time for fraud, Haigh encountered the term corpus delicti and mistakenly concluded that murder could not be proven without a body. He tested this theory by dissolving mice in sulphuric acid. Upon learning that Betty had given birth to a daughter and left, Haigh moved to London after his release and worked as an engineer. He lost that job due to a relationship with his boss's daughter, Gillian Rogers, then became an inventor. He ran into a former employer, Donald McSwan, who owned a successful property business. Donald agreed to let Haigh run the business and care for his parents while Donald hid in Scotland during the war. Haigh lured Donald to his workshop, bludgeoned him, and dissolved his body in acid, then forged Donald's signature to take over his affairs. He maintained the ruse throughout the war. On VE Day, Haigh told Donald's parents, William and Amy, that Donald had returned and was waiting at the workshop. He killed each of them after driving them there separately. Using the McSwans' money, Haigh established himself at the Onslow Court Hotel in Kensington.

Background

In November 2001, the Scarborough News reported that Yorkshire Television was working on a production titled A Is for Acid portraying the life of John George Haigh, with Martin Clunes cast in the starring role. Scenes would be filmed in locations around Scarborough, particularly the South Cliff area, believed to resemble Kensington as it looked during the 1940s. Yorkshire Television had asked Scarborough Council for permission to close some roads and the Esplanade for filming, but permission was refused, so residents were asked to avoid the area voluntarily. Additional scenes were filmed in Wetherby, Saltaire, and outside Hyde Park Picture House, Leeds. In an interview on the day the film aired, Clunes said he had never been asked to play someone who actually existed before, calling Haigh a real challenge. He noted that his mother remembered the case as a truly horrific event, and that an older friend told him he was often warned as a child: "You eat that up or John Haigh will get you."

Reception

The film was heavily promoted by ITV before its first broadcast at 9:00pm on 9 September 2002, but attracted a relatively small audience for a peak time programme. Overnight figures suggested 6 million viewers had tuned in, a figure beaten by an episode of Waking the Dead on BBC One. A review in the Manchester Evening News the following day was generally favourable, stating that Clunes acquitted himself tremendously in his portrayal of the beaming, oily trickster with a murderous heart, making the killer plausible, disarming and businesslike. However, the reviewer was critical of the film's lack of tension and its failure to analyse Haigh's psyche.