The curious case of The Silent Twins has long fascinated the nation.
June and Jennifer Gibbons caught the attention of the British media when they were sentenced to indefinite detention at Britain’s most prolific high-security psychiatric hospital, Broadmoor, in 1982 – they were only 19 years old at the time.
The pair were infamous for how they only communicated with each other until Jennifer’s death in 1993, something which remains a mystery to this day. June now lives a quiet life, aiming to put her past behind her.
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That’s the tale you may be familiar with, but it’s not the full story. New film The Silent Twins aims to deliver just that, giving the pair their due and showing audiences who the Gibbons really were.
Actor Tamara Lawrance, who portrays Jennifer, admits that she initially deeply misunderstood the twins, which is the case for most of the British public.
For Lawrance, this is why this film had to be made, as she told Zavvi: “It was uprooting a scandal and the misrepresentation of two people who had a much deeper, vaster scope of humanity, imagination, heart, and interconnectedness than we were aware of.
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“I had heard of them before and had seen the photos, thinking they were creepy. I was aware of the folklore and mystery around them, having it in my head that they had killed people or something, as I knew they ended up at Broadmoor.
“But when I read the book and script, it was like it was talking about completely different people.”
In the latest edition of our free digital magazine The Lowdown, Lawrance discusses the challenges of sensitively bringing this intense true story to life.
Pick up your free copy here to read more.
The Silent Twins is released in UK cinemas on Friday 9th December.
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