PARTY ANIMAL
HUGH GRANT AND BEN WHISHAW STAR IN THE TRUE STORY OF AN MP AND THE PLOT TO KILL HIS EX-LOVER…
I LOVE THINGS THAT ARE FUNNY AND SAD AT THE SAME TIME” HUGH
In the 1960s and 70s, the leader of the Liberal Party, Jeremy Thorpe, was a popular and charismatic figure. He’d campaigned hard to turn around the fortunes of his party and had transformed them into a credible threat to the Conservatives and Labour – but behind his political success he had a serious problem: Norman Scott.
Jeremy was well aware that if his homosexuality became common knowledge, it would mean the end of his political career – and Norman, who he’d had a relationship with in the early 1960s, was threatening to go public with the details of their affair. This three-part drama explores the fallout, which led to a drastic attempt to keep Norman quiet...
“This was all happening while I was at school,” explains Hugh Grant, who plays Jeremy in the miniseries. “The script was so up my alley – I love things that are funny and sad at the same time, which rejoice in eccentricity.”
“I didn’t know anything about the real story – it was before I was born,” adds Ben Whishaw, who plays Norman. “I had no idea who Jeremy Thorpe was, but I thought the script was delightful and very complicated and funny. ”
With no sign of Norman’s demands abating, Jeremy sought help from political allies and a plot was hatched to silence Norman for good — by hiring a hitman. However, the hit only succeeded in killing Norman’s dog Rinka. Word about the plot soon got out and Jeremy found himself in court charged with conspiracy and incitement to murder.
“The more I read about Thorpe, the more I realised that many politicians are in show business,” muses Hugh. “All of his life he was a star – as a student at Oxford, he was very determined, with a terrifying ambition to rise, rise, rise. But then, of course, he had this inner turmoil about being gay and what that felt like in the years when this was illegal, so there was this strange and complex contrast between his blithe exterior and his promiscuity.”
Although Jeremy was eventually acquitted in court,