Sir Michael Gambon is to play Winston Churchill in a new ITV drama about his final years in office opposite Lindsay Duncan as his wife, Clementine.
Churchill’s Secret is based on Jonathan Smith’s recently published book, The Churchill Secret: KBO, set during the summer of 1953 when the then-peacetime prime minister had a stroke, which was kept secret from the world.
It is the latest ITV drama commission to be announced in recent weeks, including Peter Pan adaptation Peter and Wendy starring Stanley Tucci and Paloma Faith, and an eight-part dramatisation of the reign of Queen Victoria.
Harry Potter and Singing Detective star Gambon was most recently seen in BBC1’s JK Rowling adaptation, The Casual Vacancy, earlier this year.
He becomes the latest actor to portray Churchill on screen, including Robert Hardy, Timothy Spall, Bob Hoskins, and arguably the most acclaimed of them all, Albert Finney in the BBC’s The Gathering Storm. Brendan Gleeson took the role in its sequel, Into the Storm.
The ITV director of drama, Steve November ,said: “Churchill’s Secret is the extraordinary and compelling story of how one of our country’s most famous political figures battled back from life-threatening illness to hold on to power.”
A two-hour film, Churchill’s Secret will also be broadcast on PBS in the US. Filming will begin next month in London and at Churchill’s principal family home, Chartwell in Kent.
Announcing the commission on Tuesday, ITV said: “Told from the viewpoint of his young nurse, Millie Appleyard, the drama follows his battle to recover as his long-suffering wife Clemmie desperately hopes the stroke will force Winston to retire while his political friends and foe scheme to plot who will succeed him.
“Meanwhile his adult children descend on Chartwell, unsure if he will pull through, as tensions within his family begin to surface.”
Gambon will appear with Lindsay Duncan, who plays his wife Clementine, in the one-off film Churchill’s Secret.
The show, which will also be broadcast on PBS in the US next year, is set “We’re delighted to commission Churchill’s Secret from Daybreak Pictures and to be working with Michael Gambon as Sir Winston Churchill and Lindsay Duncan as his wife Clemmie.”
