A VERY

English Scandal, about Jeremy Thorpe’s failed bid to murder his gay lover, was an acclaimed book which won rave reviews and a Bafta nomination for Hugh Grant when it was turned into a BBC drama. Now its author, John Preston, is to bring another controversial figure back under the spotlight. He’s writing a biography of pension-plundering newspaper proprietor Robert Maxwell, and is in talks with TV producers about bringing it to the screen, having won support from the tycoon’s son Ian. ‘I think it’s the right time to look again at my father’s life,’ businessman Ian tells me at the Chelsea launch of another book about his dad, My Unique Friendship With Robert Maxwell, by Eleanor Berry. ‘He was what someone termed “a very good bad man”. I hope any study will examine the many excellent things he did.’ Preston says: ‘I hope it will give as rounded a portrait of him as possible. I don’t have any axe to grind, but I do want to try to understand him.’