Partygate, the scandal that helped bring down Boris Johnson and may yet cost him his parliamentary seat, is being made into docudrama for Channel 4.
Partygate the True Story will dramatise numerous drunken parties in Downing during the Covid lockdown, including booze runs to fill a staff wine fridge, vomiting officials, and the breaking of a child’s swing during a garden party.
It will also depict how Rishi Sunak and Boris Johnson were fined for attending an illegal birthday celebration for the latter. One Johnson supporter claimed the then prime minister was “ambushed by a cake” during a gathering that was also attended by his interior designer, Lulu Lytle, employed at the time to revamp his flat.
Announcing its schedule for this year, Channel 4 said: “This meticulously researched docudrama takes viewers inside No 10 as staff partied while the Covid death toll soared and the country diligently observed lockdown restrictions.”
The broadcaster said the programme would contrast “the revelry inside the nation’s seat of power with the hardship and sacrifice experienced across the rest of the country”.
It is being produced by a team behind Bafta-winning dramas including Killed by My Debt, The Left Behind, and Murdered by My Father.
The film-makers will have plenty of material to explore. Partygate was investigated by the former senior civil servant Sue Gray and by the Metropolitan police, and is the subject of an investigation by a cross-party committee of MPs.
The Commons privileges committee could punish Johnson if it concludes that he lied to parliament about the parties. A suspension from the Commons of 10 days would trigger a recall petition, which could then lead to a byelection in Johnson’s Uxbridge and South Ruislip seat.
The new docudrama will be the second to depict the No 10 operation during the Covid pandemic. Michael Winterbottom’s This England, for Sky, dramatised the first weeks of the lockdown, including Johnson (played by Kenneth Branagh) being treated in hospital for Covid, and Dominic Cummings’ trips to Durham and Barnard Castle.
