Affair drama to launch new channel
David Blunkett's affair with magazine publisher Kimberly Quinn will be played out in a television drama on the launch night of Channel 4's new digital channel More4, it has been announced.
The channel, which has a £33 million programme budget, will make its debut at 8pm on October 10, and then broadcast daily from 4pm to 6am.
A Very Social Secretary, a satirical drama, stars Bernard Hill, who played King Theoden in Lord Of The Rings, as the former Home Secretary, Victoria Hamilton as his lover and My Family star Robert Lindsay as Prime Minister Tony Blair.
Blunkett's affair, which ultimately led to his resignation following allegations that he fast-tracked a visa application for Quinn's nanny, is already the basis of a play, Who's The Daddy?, and a yet-to-be seen musical.
Reports have suggested that there will be just one romp in More4's take on events.
A Very Social Secretary is being billed as the first in a series of feature-length dramas and documentaries to be screened monthly on Monday nights on More4, which will be available on Freeview, as well as Sky Digital and digital cable.
Channel 4, which is already courting controversy with news of a saucy Princess Margaret drama on its terrestrial channel, said that nearly two-thirds of the new channel's programme budget would be spent on original, British content.
It describes More4 as a "public service channel" for "discerning viewers who want more from digital TV than repeats, football and back-to-back acquisitions".
Also announced in Edinburgh, the location for the annual International Television Festival, was a drama documentary on animal experimentation, and the UK TV premiere of Downfall, the Oscar-nominated film portraying life in Hitler's bunker, with Bruno Ganz as the doomed dictator, both to be shown on More4.
The channel will also run its own half-hour weeknight news bulletin, intended "to give a platform to voices not normally heard in the mainstream media", and a late-night topical talk show.
wanadoo
