A Very English Scandal
Sun 27 May, 9pm BBC1 Drama
The Inbetweeners star Blake Harrison sports a moustache and 1970s fashions as he plays a hapless hitman on a mission to murder Norman Scott (Ben Whishaw), but who ends up shooting his Great Dane instead. This leads the police to Thorpe’s associates and so begins the Liberal leader’s downfall. Watch out, too, for W1A’s Monica Dolan, who plays Jeremy Thorpe’s second wife, Marion.
A VERY ENGLISH SCANDAL Sunday, 9pm BBC1 Drama
The secret relationship between Liberal Party leader Jeremy Thorpe and Norman Scott ended in the 1960s but Jeremy’s fear of his gay past being exposed dominates the second episode of A Very
English Scandal.
Happily married Jeremy (Hugh Grant) is on the brink of a major political breakthrough at the 1974 election. Norman, who feels badly treated by his former lover, has moved to Devon where Jeremy is the MP and he starts gossiping with locals. He also visits Jeremy’s Liberal colleagues in Parliament, further stoking Thorpe’s paranoia…
‘The story is delicious and exciting, with the ridiculous, weird, random twists and turns that fate took for these two people,’ says Ben Whishaw, who plays Norman. ‘There are tragic elements but it also plays like a bizarre comedy.’
Disaster
Thorpe’s dodgy associates set out to find a hitman to kill Norman, eventually hiring former airline pilot Andrew Newton (Blake Harrison). Newton is an inept drunk, and during his showdown with Norman near Exmoor, shoots dead Norman’s Great Dane dog, Rinka.
This botched murder attempt prompts a police investigation that brings Jeremy under suspicion…
‘Norman lurches from one disaster to another,’ says Ben. ‘He and I had lunch together and he’s a very flirty, silly, attractive 78-yearold. But in the 1970s he was quite
damaged.’