Celeb couple Matthew Macfadyen and Keeley Hawes are to star in a thrilling drama about disgraced Labour minister John Stonehouse.
The ITV series will capture how the politician infamously faked his own death, had an affair with his secretary and was unmasked as a Cold War spy.
Succession actor Macfadyen, who will play Stonehouse, said: “I’ve always been intrigued by what motivated him to leave behind the family he loved and a promising political career.”
Hawes, 46, known for her roles in Line Of Duty and The Durrells, will play Stonehouse’s wife Barbara.
She and her husband starred in 2007 film Death At A Funeral and met on the set of Spooks in 2002. Their new drama will unfold to tell the full story of Stonehouse’s incredible antics.
A leading member of Harold Wilson’s Government, the MP vanished from the beach of a Florida hotel in 1974, leaving a folded pile of clothes as he swam into the sea, intent on faking his own death.
He joined the Labour Party at 16 and was an economist involved in co-operative enterprise in Africa before he was first elected as Labour Co-operative Member of Parliament (MP) for Wednesbury in Staffordshire in a 1957 by-election, having contested Twickenham in 1950 and Burton in 1951.
His reputation as a devoted family man masked the truth, as he’d embarked on an extramarital affair with his secretary, Sheila Buckley, and acted as a spy for the Czech Secret Service which is thought to have begun in 1962.
Later MP for Walsall North, he left behind his loving wife Barbara and three young children as a shocked public and media presumed he had drowned or been eaten by sharks in 1974.
But in truth he was facing financial ruin after a string of bad business deals and his political career was falling apart and so he had panicked enough to flee to Miami to stage his crude suicide caper and head to Australia under an assumed name of a dead member of his constituency.
Brought back to the UK by Scotland Yard detectives, Stonehouse found that he was crucial to keeping the Labour government in power with its wafer-thin majority.
Back home, soon declared bankrupt, he was convicted of 18 charges of fraud, theft and deception and sentenced to seven years after a trial in which he conducted his own defence and failed to work his trademark charm on the jury.
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He endured three heart attacks while behind bars, but put a brave face on his ordeal, writing: “The opportunity to sleep nine hours a night and really relax has been extremely good for me. I ask you to disabuse yourself of any idea that prison is harmful.”
By the end of the decade in August 1979, he was freed on account of his good behaviour but he was a broken man. He suffered with bad health and died in April 1988 as the result of another heart attack.
ITV head of drama Polly Hill said: “John Preston’s brilliant scripts and the perfect casting of Matthew Macfadyen and Keeley Hawes promise to make this an unmissable drama. This incredible true story and the excellent production team, led by the director Jon S. Baird, will continue the unparalleled quality we have at delivering true drama on ITV.”
Scriptwriter John Preston said: “I’ve always been fascinated by John Stonehouse. The story of how he faked his own death and tried to start a new life in Australia under an assumed name is one of the most bizarre true-life tales I’ve ever come across. I’m absolutely thrilled that it’s being brought to the screen with such an outstanding cast.”
The drama Stonehouse is expected to be broadcast on ITV later in the year.
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