A Hampstead pub is to play a key role in a new drama about the last woman in the UK to be hanged.

Ruth Ellis shot her abusive boyfriend, racing driver David Blakely, in 1955 outside the Magdala Pub, in South Hill Park, where he was drinking.

The story of the murder is to be told in a four-part drama, Ruth, on ITV and ITV X, starring Miss Potter, Murder on the Orient Express and Bohemian Rhapsody star Lucy Boynton.

The fatal shooting took place at around 9.30pm on Easter Sunday, April 10, 1955, after Blakely and his friend Clive Gunnell left the pub.

Ellis stepped out of the doorway of Henshaw's, a newsagent next to the Magdala, and as Blakely searched for the keys to his car, she took a revolver from her handbag and fired five shots.

Ham & High: David Blakely, the racing driver who was killed by Ruth Ellis in 1955David Blakely, the racing driver who was killed by Ruth Ellis in 1955 (Image: PA)

The first missed, but Ellis chased him around the car, firing a second shot that made him collapse on the pavement. Standing over him, she fired three more times.

After some difficulty, she fired the revolver's sixth shot into the ground, where it ricocheted and injured bystander Gladys Yule.

The pub was closed from October 23 to 25 for filming of the shooting scene.

Magdala barman Alex Hunt told the Ham&High: "They were here for three days last week. There were a lot of people here and they filmed inside and outside the pub, but I don't know what will make it into the final edit."

Ham & High: Fake bullet holes at the side of the Magdala Pub where Ruth Ellis fatally shot her abusive lover David BlakelyFake bullet holes at the side of the Magdala Pub where Ruth Ellis fatally shot her abusive lover David Blakely (Image: Nathalie Raffray)

The barman added: "Are those the real bullet holes? No. The old landlady drilled them in. She used to have loads of tourists come in here."

Ruth is based on Carol Ann Lee's biography, A Fine Day for Hanging: The Real Ruth Ellis Story, and has been adapted by Kelly Jones and produced by Silverprint Pictures, part of ITV Studios.

Ham & High: Lucy Boynton, who will play Ruth Ellis in a new ITV drama attended the UK premiere of Blind Ambition at the Curzon Mayfair in June 2022Lucy Boynton, who will play Ruth Ellis in a new ITV drama attended the UK premiere of Blind Ambition at the Curzon Mayfair in June 2022 (Image: PA)

Lucy Boynton, who starred opposite Rami Malek as Freddie Mercury's partner Mary Austin in Bohemian Rhapsody (2018), plays Ellis.

Told over two parallel timelines, the dra,a reveals facts about the case that have remained hidden for decades and poses questions about what really happened in the months before Ellis killed her lover David Blakely.

The drama depicts Ellis’s entry into a dizzying upper class London world and follows her glamorous lifestyle as a young nightclub manageress.

It highlights her abusive relationship with the man she later killed, her arrest, trial and the subsequent legal fight to reprieve her before she was hanged by hangman Albert Pierrepoint in Holloway Prison, aged just 28.

Executive producer Kate Bartlett said: "Ruth Ellis’s story is such an intoxicating, fascinating and resonant one and it has been wonderful having Carol Ann Lee’s definitive book about Ruth to work with. We can’t wait to bring it to screen.”