made clear that it could rule only on the conviction based on the law as it stood in 1955, and not on whether she should have been executed. The court was critical of the fact that it had been obliged to consider the appeal: In July 2007 a petition was published on the 10 Downing Street website asking Prime Minister Gordon Brown to reconsider the Ellis case and grant her a pardon in the light of new evidence that the jury at her trial was not asked to consider. It expired on 4 July 2008. Film, TV and theatrical adaptations In 1980, the third episode of the first series of the ITV drama series Lady Killers recreated the court case, with Ellis played by Georgina Hale. The first cinema portrayal of Ellis came with the release of the 1985 film Dance with a Stranger, directed by Mike Newell and featuring Miranda Richardson as Ellis. Both Ellis's story and the story of Albert Pierrepoint are retold in the stage play Follow Me, written by Ross Gurney-Randall and Dave Mounfield and directed by Guy Masterson. It premiered at the Assembly Rooms, Edinburgh as part of the 2007 Edinburgh Festival Fringe. In the film Pierrepoint (2006), Ellis was portrayed by Mary Stockley. Diana Dors, who had starred in Lady Godiva Rides Again, in which Ellis had a minor, uncredited role, played a character resembling (though not based on) Ellis in the 1956 British film Yield to the Night, directed by J. Lee Thompson. The case was the basis for Amanda Whittington's play The Thrill of Love. It premiered at the New Vic Theatre, Newcastle-under-Lyme, in February 2013 and subsequently played at St James Theatre London with Faye Castelow in the main role. Maxine Peake played Ellis in an adaptation of Whittington's play, broadcast on 5 November 2016 by BBC Radio 4. The life of Ellis was the inspiration behind a musical play by Lucy Rivers, Sinners Club. A co-production with Theatr Clwyd, it premiered at The Other Room Theatre in Cardiff, in February 2017. The Ruth Ellis story was dramatized in the Murder Maps series of documentaries on the Yesterday Channel on 2 November 2017. It featured Monica Weller, ghostwriter of Ruth Ellis: My Sister's Secret Life. The story was also the inspiration for the 2015 opera Entanglement by the composer Charlotte Bray. The case was re-examined by film-maker Gillian Pachter in the