A gripping drama that keeps it in the family
IN THIS remarkable true life tale, award-winning actress Ruth Wilson plays her own grandmother, the title’s Mrs Wilson. The star of the hit US drama The Affair, British actress Ruth had been carrying this story of her family around for years, wondering if she should – or could – tell it on screen.
Viewers will be pleased she did. A complicated tale of espionage, betrayal and polygamy, it certainly has all the ingredients for a gripping drama.
Ruth says: “I would tell various people the story, and they all said to me, ‘You’ve got to get this made’.
“The more I told it, the more things we kept finding out about my grandfather.”
It begins in London in 1963 and Alison Wilson (played by Ruth) nips home in her lunch hour to eat with her husband Alexander, played by Iain Glen. But within minutes he collapses and dies. It’s a pretty startling beginning to an astonishing story.
Alison must focus on dealing with her grief – in an acceptably British manner, of course – while comforting her two teenage sons Gordon and Nigel. Nigel, incidentally, went on to become Ruth’s father. But the doorbell rings and changes everything. A woman is at the door claiming to be Alec’s ‘real wife’, Gladys Wilson (Elizabeth Rider). We follow Alison’s journey to discover who Alexander Wilson really was, flashing back through their life together from when they met in 1940 and his mysterious career in the secret service.
Like any great spy thriller, this is a case where the truth is stranger than fiction.