This rigorous documentary brims with quiet fury as it looks at The Jeremy Kyle Show and the death of Steve Dymond, who killed himself in 2019, days after appearing
Jeremy Kyle Show: Death On Daytime (Channel 4) is a crass title for a rigorous documentary. There is a sense that an investigation like this has been a long time coming. The Jeremy Kyle Show ran for 3,320 episodes over 14 years on ITV, and was at times the channel’s most popular daytime show. More than 1 million viewers regularly watched as its guests argued over paternity, addiction, deceit and betrayal, while Kyle bayed and roared in their faces. ITV claimed, and continues to claim via a lengthy statement at the end of this film, that the aim of the show was to provide “conflict resolution” for its guests.
The documentary’s director Kira Phillips pieces together a different picture, and she does so with quiet fury. Steve Dymond was a guest on the show in May 2019, taking a lie detector test to prove to his partner, Jane, that he had not been unfaithful. The test said he was lying. The episode was never broadcast, because Dymond killed himself a few days after filming. Shortly afterwards, ITV cancelled the series with immediate effect.
