Get a first look at the ITV drama based on the bizarre true story

A primary-look trailer for The Thief, His Spouse and The Canoe reveals Eddie Marsan and Monica Dolan recreating the notorious photograph that proved the downfall of John and Anne Darwin.

The ITV drama sequence, which begins on Easter Sunday, retells the bizarre true crime story of the Darwins from Anne’s standpoint, performed by Dolan.

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In 2002, John Darwin hatched a plan to go lacking whereas canoeing off the Hartlepool coast and to faux his personal dying with the assistance of his spouse, in an effort to money in life insurance coverage insurance policies and keep away from bakruptcy.

John had purchased quite a lot of extravagant properties however was unable to maintain up with the mortgage funds and deliberate to cover out in the home subsequent door to his “grieving” spouse, ultimately returning and claiming reminiscence loss.

However when a photograph of the couple emerged from a Panama property web site exhibiting that they’d travelled there collectively to speculate throughout the interval that John was supposedly presumed useless, it prompted outrage – not least, from their two grownup sons who had been result in imagine their father was gone.

The drama sequence trailer reveals a smiling Marsan and Dolan in a mock-up of the Panama photograph which result in their trial and imprisonment for six years.

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Dolan mentioned: “It’s a sequence of occasions that’s extremely weird, and but for those who observe what they had been making an attempt to do, each particular person occasion is smart.

“Nobody is denying they had been criminals, however on the identical time banks had been promoting mortgages they shouldn’t have been promoting to that couple. They had been certain to get into hassle. It truly is a captivating story.”

Marsan added: “I believe folks could come away with a little bit of empathy for Anne, however much less so for John. Particularly throughout lockdown, numerous us have confronted monetary issue in circumstances we will’t management. What this story does is take that to an excessive. Plenty of us face monetary difficulties, however we don’t give you such extraordinary options.”

Story continues

Dolan additionally gave a teaser of how the story can be informed as she mentioned: “How true will Anne’s narration be? How a lot of what she is saying is real? It’s all the time very attention-grabbing to play a personality who’s untruthful.

“If you happen to’re mendacity badly, it makes different folks look silly, and so they can’t all have been silly on this story. The viewers know she’s mendacity, and there’s no mileage in making it too apparent. Additionally, I don’t assume John may have achieved what he did with out her, and but she conjures up sympathy in folks.

“It’s a terrific story about an unreliable narrator.”

The Thief, His Spouse and the Canoe is on ITV at 9pm from Easter Sunday to Wednesday, 20 April.

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