Hardy dares to take on SAS hero Paddy

TOM Hardy might or might not be the next James Bond when Daniel Craig steps down but the Mad Max and Peaky Blinders star – who can forget his East End gangster Alfie Solomons – has been lined up to play another British action man in a forthcoming TV drama series on the SAS, namely Ireland and British Lions flanker Paddy Mayne.

Mayne, below, was one of the driving forces in the nascent SAS and while operating in the North African desert between 1941-42 was credited with personally blowing up or disabling nearly 100 enemy fighter planes. He and his troop went on to wreak clandestine havoc in Italy and Germany and for his bravery he received the DSO and three bars, becoming the most decorated British serviceman of the War.

The big Ulsterman was also recommended for the VC by his commanding officer, but the hard-drinking and volatile Mayne had made too many enemies among ‘top brass’ and the request was, unusually given the support of his CO, turned down.

Periodically there are attempts in Parliament to have the VC granted posthumously o Mayne who died in a car crash in 1955, aged 40.

Hardy, a keen rugby player with London Irish junior teams in his early teens and a regular at Twickenham, would seem ideally cast to portray the complicated and nuanced Mayne.

The star of the 1938 Lions tour to South Africa was man of volcanic temperament and mood swings and an extremely dangerous drinker yet he was also a ruthless and dedicated player and soldier, a man of high intellect who relaxed by reading the romantic poets. In peace time he was a slightly shambolic small town lawyer in Newtownards in County Down.

Portraying Mayne on the small screen will be a massive challenge but with Hardy and Peaky Blinders writer Steven Knight on board the project is off to a good start.