On July 30 2005, Anthony Walker was murdered, aged just 18, in a racist attack.
With the blessing and involvement of Anthony’s mother Gee Walker, his story is being brought to screens in BBC One’s Anthony. Written by Jimmy McGovern, it is first and foremost a drama about loss.
Anthony was a Black British A-level student with his whole life ahead of him and the feature-length drama starts by engulfing us in the Walker family’s missing time – taking back the years and milestones that were snatched away.
The first hour of the standalone episode is dedicated to mapping out what could have been, had Anthony not been killed. This is what sets this drama apart from other factual dramatisations of its kind: its alternative timeline looks at the woman Anthony would have married, the child he might have fathered, the career he could have embarked on – all of which were snatched away by hateful strangers on that dark street in Merseyside.
BBC
In the process, Anthony allows for more vibrant layers when painting the picture of who its subject was: a basketball lover, with a wide and inviting smile, who had dreams of moving to the United States, becoming a lawyer and working to protect and promote civil rights.
The involvement of Anthony’s mother Gee added a much-needed layer of authenticity to this scripted episode, even down to the clothes that actor Toheeb Jimoh (who plays the role of Anthony) wore.
While a number of the imagined events were, by their very nature, fictionalised – Anthony’s wedding and the proposal on an episode of Pointless, to name just a few – McGovern tried to build on references from his conversations with Gee wherever possible.
A common thread was Anthony’s drive to help others, which was highlighted right from the opening sequence which saw him passionately defending The Big Issue initiative against someone he perceived to be abusing it. Later, he came to the assistance of that very same person, who turned out to be a friend suffering from alcohol addiction.
BBC
The final 30 minutes relive the true events of his final tragic evening, which saw Anthony being threatened and later attacked while trying to see his girlfriend home safely. He himself never made it home.
Focusing very much on the loss of the Walker family, the BBC drama did not give too much time to the attackers, who have each been convicted of Anthony’s murder and given life sentences in prison.
Paul Taylor, who was 20 at the time, has admitted to striking Anthony with an ice axe, unprovoked (via The Sun). Hours later, he fled the country along with his accomplice Michael Barton. Landing back in the UK on August 5, a few days after the attack, the pair were officially charged with murder.
The outpouring in Liverpool was huge at the time. More than 3,000 people attended Anthony’s funeral and the circumstances surrounding his death led to a number of marches.
Anthony Walker’s legacy lives on. His family have launched the Anthony Walker Foundation, with an aim to combat race and hate crime.
What’s more, the Crown Prosecution Service in Merseyside created the CPS Anthony Walker Law Scholarship in his memory. This was a 12-month scholarship for Black (or other underrepresented ethnicity) graduates looking to study law, just as Anthony had always wanted.
Anthony will air on BBC One at 8.30pm on July 27.
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