Not least because the story bears a striking resemblance to several recent scandals. But also because it so thoroughly, and sensitively, interrogates all sides in the ‘culture wars’.
So who or what exactly did inspire the story? Who’s in it? And what does it have to say about cancel culture? The RTS attended the official ITV press screening to find out.
In an era in which Britain’s culture wars continue to rage, it takes a brave soul to sideswipe their main tenets on a mile-a-minute TV series. But if ever there were a safe pair of hands, it’s those of Steven Moffat OBE.
His ITV comedy drama, densely packed into four 45-minute episodes, embraces many more themes than cancel culture, to which the title, Douglas Is Cancelled, alludes. Also highlighted are wokeness, identity politics, mansplaining, slighting, mental health, “micro-bullying” and equality.
The eponymous Douglas (Bonneville) is an esteemed news presenter who finds himself in the middle of a social media storm after telling an off-colour joke at a wedding.
“It was sexist, not misogynist!” an exasperated Douglas insists in the trailer.
Though initially on good terms with co-anchor Madeline (Gillan), Douglas’s wife Sheila (Alex Kingston) warns him that his colleague isn’t always to be trusted.
Beside the Mighty Boosh star and Bake Off presenter, Bonneville (Downton Abbey) will play Turpin’s arch-nemesis, the self-appointed “thief-taker”, otherwise known as Jonathan Wilde.
When Turpin is appointed the unwilling leader of a group of bandits, he is sent on a bizarre journey of strange adventures. Turpin’s highway robbery success is mainly due to his good hair and charisma, but there is only so far this can get him when riding the rollercoaster of a life of crime and being chased by a “thief-taker.”
Entitled The Gold, the six-episode series was written by Neil Forsyth (Guilt) and will star Hugh Bonneville (Downton Abbey), Jack Lowden (Slow Horses), Dominic Cooper (The Preacher) and Charlotte Spencer (Cinderella).
When six men set out on a “typical Old Kent Road armed robbery” of Brink’s-Mat security depot near Heathrow Airport on the 26 November 1983, they inadvertently stumbled upon a pile of gold bullion worth £26 million.
(Credit: BBC)
It's an exciting time as the BBC’s Head of Values Ian Fletcher (Hugh Bonneville), formerly Olympic Head of Deliverance, is throwing open the revolving doors of the organisation in this six-part series.
The cameras will be following Fletcher and his team during and post-Charter as the attempt to decipher the BBC’s new mission statement of doing More Of Less, something Head of Output Anna Rampton (Sarah Parish) described succinctly as “putting what we do best front and centre and about identifying better ways of doing less of it more.”
The event is part of the BBC Shakespeare Festival which will take place in April to mark 400 years since the writer’s death.
The live television event will be hosted by David Tennant and directed by RSC Artistic Director Gregory Doran, and will feature Dame Judi Dench, Sir Ian McKellen, Joseph Fiennes, the English National Opera and more.
Writer/director John Morton explained to a packed London Centre event at the end of January that the show’s forerunner, London Olympics mockumentary Twenty Twelve, was initially poorly received by the BBC.
“Twenty Twelve had a bit of a bumpy start – it wasn’t always liked very much in the BBC,” revealed Morton. “When it went out and did okay the music changed from ‘We don’t think this is very good’ to ‘Can we have more of these wonderful characters?’.”
The final episode of Downton Abbey airs this Christmas, so in honour of the event we’re running down our Top 10 facts about everyone’s favourite period drama.
