Myra play art or just insensitive?

MOORS murderer Myra Hindley died last November after spending 36 years behind bars.

She was never released despite the protests of her supporters who claimed she was a reformed woman.

Yet her notoriety has never gone away.

During the 1960s, Hindley killed four children together with her lover, Ian Brady. Brady murdered one more, 12-year-old John Kilbride.

They took their victims from the streets of Manchester to fulfil their lust for murder.

And each was buried on Saddleworth Moor in make-shift graves.

The names of the victims are familiar. In 1966, Hindley and Brady were convicted of murdering 10-year-old Lesley Ann Downey and 17-year-old Edward Evans. Brady was convicted of murdering John Kilbride.

Later, they confessed to killing Pauline Reade, aged 16, and Keith Bennet, aged 12.

The deaths of the five, helpless youngsters -- each killed in an horrific, calculating fashion -- have never been forgotten.

And that is why staging a play in Manchester, called Myra, about Hindley has been roundly condemned and why some claim that using the excuse that it is art is just plain insensitive.

The play's author, Ainsworth-born Sheila McAnulty teaches A-level drama and theatre studies at Bury College and is in the final year of a post-graduate writing and performance course at the Arden School of Theatre, part of City College, Manchester.

The Hindley play will be assessed as part of her qualification.

She says she is not courting publicity. Yet writing a play about Hindley in which she explores the killer's much-repeated "defence" that she was influenced to kill by Brady could do little else.

Lord Longford, a long-time campaigner who insisted Hindley had made excellent progress in prison and become "a good woman" always believed Hindley had been corrupted by her lover.

He said she was "intimidated into helping commit the murders by Brady".

But he knew Hindley and could at least talk from a more informed perspective. Mrs McAnulty had never spoken to Hindley; never attempted to make contact with her. Her one-sided piece is written purely from newspaper reports and magazine articles.

Some would say it is a crass attempt to once again reopen wounds in the name of art -- a world where controversy is applauded no matter who it hurts.

First came the giant picture of Hindley made from children's handprints which so enraged visitors to the Sensation exhibition at the Royal Academy in London five years ago that it was pelted with eggs and ink.

Manchester band The Smiths wrote lyrics which reflected on the murderers and also provoked criticism.

The play Myra and Me at the Edinburgh Festival in 1999 was fiercely attacked by critics and made headline news in the tabloids. The stage drama And All The Children Died which was put on at the West Yorkshire Playhouse last year was billed as "investigative drama" -- yet was labelled "disgusting."

Even a straight forward BBC documentary in 2000 was branded "a disgrace and an insult" for asking whether some crimes were so terrible that the people who commit them should die behind bars.

To write anything about Hindley and not believe it would generate publicity is like running in front of a 10-ton lorry and not expecting to be killed.

Hindley was dubbed "Britain's most evil woman" by the press. Many people are still angry that Hindley did not confess to two murders straight away and that little help was given by the killers to Winnie Johnson, aged 70, whose son Keith Bennett remains undiscovered on Saddleworth Moor.

Winnie has been the most vocal member of the victims' families. She accused the West Yorkshire Playhouse last year of "making money from murdered children".

She says writing plays about Hindley is "disgusting and unfair to me," adding: "Hindley is being glorified and I am suffering all the time."

Her thoughts are echoed by Norman Brennan, director of the Victims of Crime Trust and the victims' families' spokesman.

He said: "The families of Hindley's victims just want to get on with their lives. Hindley's crimes took place in 1963 and bringing it up time and again doesn't help."

Despite the upset likely to be caused, Mrs McAnulty, whose play is set in Holloway Prison during the 1970s -- before Hindley confessed to killing Pauline and Keith -- defends her drama.

She says it is a serious attempt to delve into her mind but admits it is a fictitious performance, largely based on speculation.

"My play mentions the time Hindley met Brady and how he influenced her thinking," she explains.

"But it also shows that she takes joint responsibility for the crimes.

"I admit anything that stirs up memories of these crimes will obviously be very difficult but I'm not excusing anything Hindley did at all and I've not done this to generate publicity for myself.

"A lot of what she did like converting to Catholicism while in prison I've suggested was a front. I'm just taking a piece of history and interpreted the facts from one perspective."

Mrs McAnulty, undeterred from writing about Hindley, is currently penning a full length play which explores the life of a boy growing up in Saddleworth at the time of the murder spree. Her 40-minute monologue is a spin-off from that drama and it will be staged at Taurus, in Canal Street, Manchester.

Mrs McAnulty said: "Hindley's crimes were atrocious. I found it difficult to write this play because I couldn't understand why anyone would commit these violent crimes or how a woman could have done it. That's what I've tried to explore."

Any profits will be used to take the show on tour. When it was suggested she made a contribution to the families of Hindley's victims she said it was something she would "seriously think about".

Critics would also hope she seriously thinks about the wounds she will be reopening -- and calls the play off.

The play opens at Taurus, Canal Street, Manchester city centre, this Sunday. It runs until Tuesday.