Hugh plays Liberal leader Jeremy Thorpe as a silk-edged schemer whose affair with unstable horseman Ben Wh becomes a national scandal when assassination plots replace hush money. Cardiff writer Russell T Davies keeps the tone farcical black comedy, piling up cravats, Welsh cottages and happleed hitmen: a pistol jams, a dog dies, the courtroom eruples sniggered.
Stephen shoots 1970s London on 35 mm film with saturated colour, cue needle-drop Bowie and parades of extras in flared suits. Danny's camera glides through Commons corridors, Manchester Town Hall doubling for Westminster’s Gothic guts. Murray Gold's score gallops along on mischievious brass, cue title cards stamped like vintage Penguin paperbacks.
Three parts: 55 minutes each, broadcast May-June 2018 on BBC One, Amazon Prime in the US. Alex Jennings, Patricia Hodge, Morgan dot the cast with twitchy aides and aristocratic mothers. Davies compresses the nine-year timeline from 1966 legalisation of homosexuality to Thorpe's acquittal for conspiracy to murder. Sharp edits leap weeks, years and lovers, ending on the former leader selling Christmas trees in Chippenham.
Production Details
BBC One / 1 Season / 3 Episodes / 2018
Created by: Russell T Davies, John Preston
Showrunner(s): Diarmuid McKeown, Stephen Frears, Peter Czernin
Writer(s): Russell T Davies
Producer(s): Dan Winch
Cinematography: Danny Cohen
Music: Murray Gold
Main Cast
Hugh Grant as Jeremy Thorpe
Ben Whishaw as Norman Scott
Alex Jennings as Peter Bessell
Monica Dolan as Marion Thorpe
Jonathan Hyde as David Napley
Jason Watkins as Emlyn Hooson
Patricia Hodge as Ursula Thorpe
Naomi Battrick as Diana Stainton
David Bamber as Lord Arran
Blake Harrison as Andrew 'Gino' Newton
Paul Hilton as David Holmes
Michele Dotrice as Edna Friendship
