ITV viewers have been left making the same prediction after the channel released a first look at hotly anticipated new drama The Thief, His Wife and The Canoe.
After weeks of adverts for the series, it will finally launch on Easter Sunday and a teaser clip has generated the same response from those who've seen it - they think it's going to be unmissable TV.
The four part drama, while sounding like something straight from a film script, is based on the very real scandal surrounding 'canoe man' John Darwin, who faked his own disappearance after going out on his canoe close to his home in Seaton Carew on the North East coast. John going missing was not a tragic accident as it was made out to be, but a plot cooked up by him and wife Anne, after he racked up debts of £64,000.
Anne even lied to their sons, Mark and Anthony, for five years whilst her husband, in the early days of the fraud, secretly lived in a bedsit next door to their home. After half a decade of deceiving police, friends and their own flesh and blood, John and Anne decided to move to Panama, only for their shocking secret to exposed by the unearthing of a now infamous photo of them posing in a Panama real estate office in July 2006, after John had turned up a police station in London, telling officers he thought he 'was a missing person.'
READ MORE: The Thief, His Wife and Canoe cast as ITV adapt John Darwin scandal
Anne pled not guilty at her trial, saying she'd been forced to go along with John's scam, but her claims were thrown out by the jury. She and her con man husband were both jailed for more than six years. And now the disgraced couple's crimes are being thrust into the primetime spotlight on ITV with The Thief, His Wife and The Canoe.
A first look at the show, which launches on Easter Sunday, April 17, sees Eddie Marsan, in the role of John, telling on screen other half Monica Dolan as Anne: "I'm going to fake my own death. What could be simpler?" The preview clip also sees the couple on a beach in Panama, as John tells Anne: "Don't worry pet, the worst is over now," before cutting to Mark Stanley and Dominic Applewhite, in the roles of sons Mark and Anthony giving a furious interview about the wicked act of deception.
Viewers who've seen the first look video online are already predicting that The Thief, His Wife and The Canoe. will be 'unmissable TV,' with one tweeting lead actor Eddie to say they 'can't wait,' to watch it and others, particularly North East residents who remember the scandal well, intrigued to see how it will play out as a TV drama.
