Actor Martin Clunes is set to play Huw Edwards in a new drama documenting the downfall of the disgraced former BBC presenter.
In September 2024, Edwards was sentenced to six months imprisonment, suspended for two years, after pleading guilty to accessing indecent images of children as young as seven.
In July of the same year, the former broadcaster admitted three charges of “making” indecent photographs after convicted paedophile Alex Williams sent him 41 illegal images over WhatsApp.
Before his criminal conviction, Edwards’ downfall started after a report by the Sun Newspaper in July 2023 alleged that a “top BBC star” had paid a 17-year-old for sexual pictures. Days later his wife named him as the presenter at the centre of the scandal and the newsreader resigned the following April.
Now ‘5’, formerly Channel 5, have commissioned a two-part factual drama which says it will recount the presenter’s “double life” featuring interviews from those who first reported the story.
The series, which has a working title of Power: The Downfall of Huw Edwards, is the first collaboration between 5’s factual and scripted commissioning teams.
They say the drama will reportedly build on extensive factual research over 12 months, and includes extensive first hand interviews and co-operation from those at the heart of the scandal and exclusive access to The Sun newspaper’s award-winning investigation.
Ben Frow, Chief Content Officer, 5 said: “This is an important and shocking story – of how a man in a position of power and trust betrayed that status.
By gaining exclusive access to the key individuals involved and those who investigated the story, we explore the human cost behind the headlines. As a close collaboration between 5’s factual and scripted teams this isa first for the channel.”
