The downfall of former BBC presenter Huw Edwards is to be dramatised in a two-part television series, including a depiction of his alleged grooming of a vulnerable teenager.
Martin Clunes, the star of Doc Martin and Men Behaving Badly, will play the disgraced former BBC anchor, in a controversial production commissioned by Channel 5.
The channel said it had ordered the programme to explore “how a vulnerable 17-year-old was groomed by one of the most powerful figures in television”. It said the production had been a year in the making but has not revealed a broadcast date.
Channel 5 said the show will document the newsreader’s “double life as it spirals out of control, leading him to make the greatest announcement of his career – his total exit from public life following his conviction for serious child sexual offences”.
Edwards’s spectacular fall from grace was completed in September 2024, when he was handed a six-month suspended prison sentence for accessing indecent photographs of children as young as seven.
He pleaded guilty to three charges of making indecent images of children after he was sent 41 illegal images by Alex Williams, a convicted paedophile.
Edwards was the BBC’s lead presenter as recently as 2023 and announced the death of the late queen to the nation in 2022. He joined the corporation in 1984 and began anchoring the Ten O’Clock News in 2003.
Channel 5 said its show’s team had access to The Sun’s investigation into Edwards, which included allegations about payments to a teenager for sexually explicit images. Ben Frow, Channel 5’s chief content officer, said it was “an important and shocking story”.
“By gaining exclusive access to the key individuals involved and those who investigated the story, we explore the human cost behind the headlines,” he said.
TV commentator and reviewer Scott Bryan said the channel had a track record of drawing viewers in with controversial topics.
“Channel 5 has a knack for creating highbrow drama, but also documentary and factual series that raise eyebrows and perhaps cause controversy, but will get people tuning in out of intrigue,” he said.
It has been willing to embrace current affairs stories in its factual and reality programming. In 2024, it broadcast an edition of the Cast Away survival show featuring former ITV This Morning presenter Phillip Schofield.
Schofield left his presenting role after it emerged he had lied about an affair with a younger member of staff. During the programme, Schofield said he had been “thrown under the bus”.
