Politics is show business for the ugly...

all the jokes about dogs and the sniggering... Because in those days, people sniggered at gay secrets and things like that.” He follows: “(But) the more I read about Thorpe, the more I realised, like a lot of politicians, they’re show business. It’s show business for the ugly, as they say! “It was the Jeremy show,” he adds. “All his life, he was the star. “He was just determined, (he had) this terrifying ambition to rise, rise, rise. So that was a very important aspect of it. “Then of course this very complicated inner turmoil about being gay and what that felt like in the years when it was illegal,” reasons Hugh, who made his name playing bumbling, floppyhaired heartthrobs in 90s hits Four Weddings And A Funeral and Notting Hill.

A comedy tinged with tragedy, he believes the new series to be a “celebration of the oddity of life – particularly English life”.

“I love things which are funny and sad at the same time, which rejoice in eccentricity,” he explains.

“And I’ve become very interested in politics over the last six years, so I love that aspect of it.

“But unlike Stephen (Frears) said, that it was an obvious casting, it wasn’t obvious to me,” he quips, confessing he didn’t think the director would want “the guy who made big, fluffy romantic comedies”.

“He rang me up and said, ‘Well, what do you think?’ and I said, ‘Well, which part? I’m about 400 years too old to be Jeremy Thorpe at the beginning of this film’.

“I thought he might want me to play Rinka the dog or something!”

Thankfully not. But the role of Thorpe itself would take some groundwork.

“It’s unlike me to do any prep at