EXCLUSIVE: The timing couldn’t be better. Just a week after Rupert Murdoch‘s shock apology and settlement with Prince Harry, ITV has unveiled a phone hacking drama series from Jack Thorne starring David Tennant as investigative journalist Nick Davies.
ITV and Australian streamer Stan have spent the past year quietly filming, editing and laying the groundwork for The Hack, which comes from the storied creative trio of multi-BAFTA Award winner Thorne, director Lewis Arnold (Sherwood) and producer Patrick Spence (Mr Bates vs the Post Office).
Set between 2002 and 2012, The Hack interweaves two real life stories, the work of Davies, who uncovered evidence of phone hacking at Murdoch’s now-defunct News of the World, and the story of the investigation into the unsolved murder of private investigator Daniel Morgan, led by former Met Police Detective Chief Superintendent Dave Cook. Its working titles through the past year have included Broken News and Mandrake.
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Tennant, who has been winning plaudits for his performance in Disney+’s Rivals, is playing Davies, Robert Carlyle is Cook and Toby Jones has secured the role of Alan Rusbridger, the ex-Editor-in-Chief of The Guardian, which covered the story in depth. Rose Leslie, Dougray Scott, Eve Myles, Adrian Lester, Katherine Kelly, Kevin Doyle, Neil Maskell, Lara Pulver, Lee Ingleby, Pip Torrens, Lisa McGrillis, Sean Pertwee, Robert Bathurst, Richard Pepple, Nadia Albina, Phil Davis, Ace Bhatti, Charlie Brooks and Steve Pemberton also star.
The phone hacking scandal led to the closure of the News of the World and imprisonment of its ex-editor Andy Coulson. Davies wrote an award-winning book about it, Hack Attack: How the Truth Caught Up with Rupert Murdoch. The headline-grabbing story reared its head again last week after Murdoch’s News Group Newspapers (NGN) apologized to Prince Harry, settled with him and for the first time admitted criminal activity at The Sun. Harry and a group including Hugh Grant are now pushing for police to investigate NGN over perjury and broader cover-ups.
“Strange and deceptive piece of history”
Thorne, who is in the middle of a plethora of projects including an A24 series about Liverpool soccer club, described the phone hacking scandal as a “strange and deceptive piece of our recent history.” “I thought, as someone who is interested in politics, I understood everything that happened,” he added. “I did not.”
ITV drama head Polly Hill, who commissioned the series, paid homage to “a brilliant team and the perfect people to bring this story to screen,” while Spence added: “It’s clear that several questions remain unanswered. This drama is our contribution to that conversation.”
The team is not the first to tackle phone hacking. Thank You & Goodbye, which examined the newsroom of the News of the World and phone hacking, was in development with the BBC two and a half years ago but appears to have stalled.
ITV Studios is producing with Casarotto Ramsay-backed AC Chapter One, with the pair re-teaming following the smash hit success of Mr Bates vs the Post Office, the ITV drama that broke viewing records and generated headlines for weeks. Thorne’s One Shoe Films is also a co-producer. Between them, Thorne, Arnold and Spence have won seven BAFTAs.
Annalisa Dinnella (Sex Education, Ralph & Katie) has written one of the episodes and is co-writing two of the episodes with Thorne. ITV Studios is selling internationally and is co-financing.
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