Broadchurch plot thickens with strangest twist ever
MANY artists would willingly pay to have their work featured on a hit TV drama watched by seven million people.
But Angela Hewitt was so upset to see one of her watercolours in Broadchurch that she demanded £10,000 compensation.
She argues using her painting of a cockerel in a programme about rape has jeopardised her reputation, and she accuses TV bosses of using it in a ‘gratuitous manner’ to ‘convey a symbolic, subliminal message’ associating it with an alleged rapist. The painting was seen for just five seconds in episode six of the latest series as police searched the home of suspect Ed Burnett, played by Sir Lenny Henry. But after spotting it, Mrs Hewitt, 64, called in lawyers, who sent a strongly worded letter to Kudos, the makers of the Bafta-winning ITV drama. They wrote: ‘The work features very prominently in some particularly troubling scenes and the symbolism of displaying a cockerel so prominently within the context of those scenes, and indeed an entire television show centred on the investigation of a rape, cannot be overlooked and is surely deliberate.’
Mrs Hewitt, from the Isle of Wight, told The Mail on Sunday: ‘I feel my work has been abused. They had no right to use it. They could have easily found me.’ Asked how she felt on seeing her £125 painting in the scene, she said: ‘Disgusted and appalled.’
Kudos is understood to have argued that the scene is protected under the Copyright, Patent and Design Act, which allows images to be used ‘incidentally’ in shots.
Mrs Hewitt claims the firm offered her £1,500 but she is fighting for more, adding: ‘I’m not asking for millions of pounds.’