ITV are celebrating after The Thief, His Wife and The Canoe helped secure them their highest Easter Sunday ratings in 12 years.
Easter weekend is traditionally a time when many channels will pull out their big guns, with ITV traditionally launching Britain's Got Talent over the Bank Holiday every year, but it was the first episode of the four part drama based on the crimes of 'canoe man' John Darwin and wife Anne, which trumped all comers on Sunday, April 17 with a peak audience of 8.7 million, ITV's biggest Easter Sunday audience since 2010's final series of a Touch of Frost.
The TV adaptation of the shocking fake death scandal from 20 years, which saw John paddle out to sea close to his and Anne's home in Seaton Carew, before 'disappearing,' with both police and the couple's own sons fearing him dead. In reality, after spending a few weeks camping in the wild, John ended up living in a bedsit next to the family home for a few years,. before putting the wheel in the motion on a move to Panama.
READ MORE: Where is John Darwin now>? Canoe man's very different life after prison
John was rumbled when, after he walked into a London police station in 2007 and claimed he had amnesia, a photo was found of him and Ann posing in a Panama property office. The husband and wife fraudsters both spent years behind bars after being convicted, despite Anne pleading not guilty and insisting she was coerced into going along with the scam.
The Thief, His Wife and The Canoe took over the covered 9pm slot on ITV over four consecutive nights after its Easter Sunday debut and was followed by a documentary, featuring interviews with the people involved in the real life case. Overall, the four-parter averaged 7.8m viewers. and is now British television's third biggest drama of the year so far, and ITV's second biggest after Trigger Point. It also had an ITV Hub audience of 1.6m, the Hub's fourth highest figure for a drama on record.
It won the Easter Sunday ratings war ahead of BBC One’s Gentleman Jack, Channel 4’s AS: Who Dares Wins, Channel 5’s Jane McDonald’s Caribbean and BBC Two’s Idris Elba’s Fight School.
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