Move over Poldark! Meet the rugged new heartthrob spicing up ITV
WITH his smouldering looks, he is clearly intended to do for ITV what Aidan Turner’s Poldark did for the BBC.
Tom Bateman plays a rugged ex-soldier in the forthcoming period drama Beecham House – and loses no time getting his shirt off. He is seen sweaty and bare chested as he hacks away at shrubbery in the first episode.
The six-part series, set in Delhi at the end of the 18th century, sees Bateman, 30, play trader John Beecham, disillusioned after working for the powerful and controlling East India Company.
It follows the lives of the Beecham family in their newly-bought mansion. The series has been created by Bend It Like Beckham director Gurinder Chadha, who said she tried at first to resist a Poldark-like topless scene.
‘It’s always like “take your shirt off, come on, get them to take their shirt off,” so we did resist some of that but [Poldark] has set the bar in terms of period dramas, I have to say,’ she said.
Miss Chadha, 59, said despite the East India Company’s controversial reputation for treating Indians appallingly, its employees had good ‘within them’.
‘Every single person at the East India Company was doing the right thing as they were concerned,’ she said. ‘I think it’s very easy to create drama where you have the good guys and the bad guys and I think for me history is largely about “They’re largely good but they do some things that were bad”.’ Beecham House also stars Marc Warren, Lesley Nicol, Leo Suter, Pallavi Sharda and Dakota Blue Richards. A screening date has yet to be announced.