BBC gives Profumo scandal a Metoo slant
Minister’s wife and other women will have their ‘own voice’ in six-part Christine Keeler drama
IN THE history of the Profumo scandal, the role of the disgraced war minister’s wife has become little more than a footnote.
But a BBC retelling of the story through the “female gaze” will give Valerie Hobson a significant role, showing how she supported her husband during his darkest days.
The Trial of Christine Keeler is written, directed and produced by a female team and has been described by its cast as an adaptation for the Metoo era.
It will give Keeler, Mandy Ricedavies and Hobson their “own voice” decades after the affair caused a sensation and contributed to the fall of Harold Macmillan’s government in 1963.
Emilia Fox plays Hobson, a successful actress who was for the early part of their marriage more famous than her husband, appearing in Kind Hearts and Coronets and starring in a West End production of The King and I. She stuck by her husband devotedly after he confessed to an affair with Keeler.
The character appears in every episode of the six-part drama. “It is a significant role,” a source said. “You really see the measure of the woman.
“She was not stupid – she knew that he had affairs. But she was strong and she stayed with him to the end.”
In keeping with the female-centric tone of the drama, Hobson will be portrayed as feeling an “affinity” for Keeler. “She saw that she was a young girl. And she felt that Keeler was vilified in the press,” the source said.
An early episode will include the moment that Profumo first clapped eyes on Keeler as she emerged naked from a swimming pool at Cliveden. Hobson was also in attendance, and is said to have called for Keeler to be given a towel.
Profumo and Keeler went on to have an affair, while she simultaneously had a relationship with Yevgeny Ivanov, a Soviet agent. Profumo initially denied any impropriety, but later resigned in disgrace. Keeler is played on screen by actress Sophie Cookson, who said the drama will present “a vivid, complex woman who has previously, it seems, been reduced and misunderstood”.
She added: “Now feels like the perfect time to reconsider her life and redress the balance.”
The drama co-stars Ben Miles as Profumo and James Norton as Stephen Ward, the osteopath who was one of the central figures in the scandal.
Speaking earlier this year in Cannes, Norton said: “It’s imperative that we go
‘She knew that he had affairs. But she was strong and stayed with him to the end’
back and look at these moments in history in light of the recalibration with the Timesup and Metoo movements.”
Hobson died in 1998 and Profumo in 2006. The Trial of Christine Keeler is part of a BBC One Christmas schedule that also includes new adaptations of Dracula and A Christmas Carol, a festive Gavin & Stacey special, and a cast reunion for Miranda.
It will take up a slot in the schedule previously earmarked for a new Agatha
Christie remake, The Pale Horse, which will instead be shown in January.
♦ A poet who is guest editing Radio 4’s Today programme over Christmas has said he turned down an MBE last May because of the “pure evil” of the British empire. George the Poet, real name George Mpanga, who has Ugandan heritage, referred to “the colonial trauma inflicted on the children of Africa, entrenched across our geopolitical and macroeconomic realities”.