TV Drama “Lucan” on ITV’s roaster

Swell news via the media addicts at Televisual — Jeff Pope has penned a new TV drama centering around the colorful life and times of the long disappeared Lord Lucan.  Lucan will be a two-parter from ITV and necessarily so because, if memory serves, Lord Lucan’s story cannot be so easily summarized.  Hence our enthusiasm over the project.  This is not your everyday, aristocratic man-about-town story. Instead, you can look forward to the following:

Murder!

Intrigue!

Mystery!

Lord Lucan lived (and died?) in infamy.

The story goes like this:  Lord Lucan married Veronica, the Countess of Lucan.  Their marriage dissolved.  Lord Lucan’s personal life was left in shambles. The man blamed his wife for the state of his affairs.  He wanted his kids back, his old life.  So he did what he felt he must–he murdered his children’s nanny.  Or we think he murdered his children’s nanny.  Indeed, the theory goes that, on that late night in November of 1974, the manic Lucan mistook a shadowy figure intent on making a cup of tea (the nanny) for his wife and, thus, bludgeoned her.  Because he could.  He hasn’t been seen since.

TV Drama at its darkest.

We can look forward to a sordid tale starring Rory Kinnear as Lucan, with an as-yet unnamed appearance from the always magical Michael Gambon.

More of nitty-gritty details:
Lucan will be produced by Chris Clough (Dates, Strike Back, Skins) and executive produced by Francis Hopkinson, Jeff Pope and Quentin Curtis. The drama will be directed by Adrian Shergold (Mad Dogs, Pierrepoint, Dirty Filthy Love).

Lucan is an ITV Studios/GroupM Entertainment co-production with executive producers for GroupM Entertainment being Richard Foster and Tony Moulsdale.

ITV’s director of Drama commissioning Steve November has commissioned the drama.

Jeff Pope wrote and executive produced Mrs Biggs for ITV Studios and was the executive producer of Appropriate Adult, See No Evil: The Moors Murders, This is Personal: The Hunt for the Yorkshire Ripper and The Murder of Stephen Lawrence.

The TV drama will begin filming in London and its environs this August.