Mr Bates vs The Post Office is ITV’s biggest new drama in over a decade, even beating the launch of Downton Abbey in 2010. The series has now averaged 9.8m viewers across its four episodes in the UK, including 7-day viewing across all devices with the launch currently averaging 10.9m after ten days of catch up. The series, including the accompanying documentary, has had 16.6m streams so far on ITVX.
This criticially acclaimed drama has also had a stunning effect on British politics in early 2024, with the show discussed widely in parliament and on news broadcasts and the British government acting quickly to legislate in order to alleviate the worst cast of a miscarriage of justice in UK history. The former Post Office CEO Paula Vennells felt compelled to hand back her CBE award too.
Mr Bates vs The Post Office follows one of the greatest miscarriages of justice in British legal history, where thousands of Post Office sub postmasters and postmistresses were wrongly accused of theft, fraud and false accounting due to a defective IT system.
Mr Bates vs The Post Office focuses on how in 2009 a group of sub postmasters from across the UK decided enough was enough and formed the Justice For Subpostmasters Alliance designed to clear their names. Toby Jones plays Alan Bates who formed the group. Toby says: “I am proud to be a part of this shocking, unsettling but ultimately inspirational drama.”
Here’s everything you need to know about ITV and PBS Masterpiece drama Mr Bates vs The Post Office...
Mr Bates vs The Post Office release date
Mr Bates vs The Post Office started on ITV1 on New Year's Day, aka January 1 2024, at 9pm, with subsequent episodes shown nightly at the same time on Tuesday January 2, Wednesday January 3 with the final episode on Thursday January 4 2024. The drama will also be shown on ITVX through early 2024.
Mr Bates vs The Post Office became available in the US at 9pm Eastern from Sunday April 7 2024 on PBS Masterpiece. Along with the TV broadcast, the series will be available to stream for free on PBS.org, the PBS MASTERPIECE Prime Video Channel, or the PBS App on devices such as Android, iOS, Roku, Apple TV, Amazon Fire TV, Samsung Smart TV, Chromecast and Android TV.
* A documentary Mr Bates vs The Post Office: The Real Story was shown on Thursday January 4 at 10.45pm after the series aired in the UK and and is available on ITVX.
Is there a trailer for Mr Bates vs The Post Office?
Yes a trailer for Mr Bates vs The Post Office has been released by ITV. Take a look below...
Mr Bates vs The Post Office plot
Mr Bates vs The Post Office follows Alan Bates (Toby Jones), a sub postmaster who decided to fight back against a scandalous miscarriage of justice. He was one of thousands of sub postmasters and postmistresses who between 2000 and 2013 were falsely accused of theft due to financial discrepancies thrown up by the flawed Horizon computerised accounting system. More than 700 were prosecuted and several went to prison while others lost their homes and life savings trying to pay back the money the Post Office claimed was missing. Many were unfairly ostracised from their communities, who believed they were criminals. In 2009 Alan Bates decided to form the Justice For Subpostmasters Alliance, uniting thousands of his colleagues to fight to clear their names.
Mr Bates vs The Post Office cast — Toby Jones interview on playing Alan Bates
Toby Jones plays Alan Bates who fought the Post Office in order to prove his innocence.
"I’m ashamed to say I had scant knowledge of this scandal, but it felt like it was hiding in plain sight amongst all the other daily news,’ says Bafta winner Toby, 57. ‘I hadn’t understood the full severity of the story, and I can only assume that’s partly because when you hear “Post Office”, you take for granted what this institution does.
"It’s shocking just how appalling this is, and after being cast, I spoke to Alan Bates,’ says Toby. ‘I tried to work out what drove him on, because I think he’s quite unusual. By which I mean, he presents as a very practical man in very regular clothing, but he has a fine, fine mind and is just extraordinary. For all of the appalling injustice and the terrible, ongoing struggle that ordinary people have been thrown into lasting a number of years, a crisis throws up opportunities for heroism,’ says Toby. ‘Alan Bates is a proper hero."
Toby and his castmates hope this drama will finally shine a light on the catastrophe, especially as it’s far from over. "The point of this drama is to bring this back onto the agenda, and it’s also a siren to people who are terrified to declare themselves," says Toby. "Alan is still trying to get compensation for families who have suffered huge stress and ongoing mental health issues, and the compensation scheme closes in August 2024, so action must take place now. We have to encourage fearful sub-postmasters, who were wrongly convicted, to claim their compensation and make their voices heard. This is an urgent piece of drama, and If we’ve done our job, it will make viewers see a senselessness and vindictiveness to the scandal that makes you wonder how on earth it isn’t being spoken about more."
* Toby Jones has also starred in the BBC comedy series Detectorists and has a had hugely successful movie career, having starred in Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, The Pale Blue Eye, The Wonder, The Hunger Games movies and My Week With Marilyn. He voices Dobby in the Harry Potter films and has also been in Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, Snow White and The Huntsman and Captain America: The Winter Soldier.
Monica Dolan interview on playing Jo Hamilton
Monica Dolan plays victimised sub-postmaster Jo Hamilton in Mr Bates vs The Post Office.
Monica Dolan says: “I'm playing Jo Hamilton and she was the subpostmaster at South Warnborough [in Hampshire]. She'd done many, many different jobs in her life before, she was asked to run the village shop and she turned it into one of the best little delis around. The really good thing was they had a post office at the back, so that helped to subsidise it. I believe the person who was subpostmaster became very ill, so Jo took over. It was around that time that the Horizon computer system came in and so all of this —the shortfalls created by the system that were blamed on the subpostmasters and they were contractually obliged to pay off —started happening when she joined. So she kept thinking it was her. She remortgaged her house, she put money into it and got into huge debt. She wouldn’t even tell her family about it because she was so ashamed. She just kept ringing the helpline, but she wasn't getting help. They kept saying, as they did to all the other subpostmasters, it's only you that this is happening to. Jo was and is very much loved in the village, so when she was taken to court and the Post Office commenced criminal proceedings, lots of people in her village turned out to support her and to speak up for her.”
Monica met the real Jo Hamilton while researching the role.
“I was very, very lucky with Jo because she was extremely approachable from very early on, ' Monica says: "It was just basic things like, ‘What colour was your hair at this point?’ and I could just get in touch with her right away and get loads of photos back. I remember there was a point where I thought, ‘This is quite delicate. She might not want to do it, but I'll just ask…’ and I asked her if she wouldn't mind making me an audio recording of her life story up to the point where we meet her in the script. That was extremely useful and I played it in the car on the way to set every day. It not only gave me her life story, but it gave me her voice, so I could practice her accent. People go, ‘Playing real people… it must be more difficult.’ But actually, if they're alive, you've got them to ask. And if they're not alive, you've possibly got them to read about or see footage of. You can look at their body language, see what they were interested in, see how they might behave in private.
"Jo was extremely warm. I think she was one of the few that did set visits and by the time it came to lunch and I was chatting to her, she had talked to absolutely everyone. She's very gregarious and a great animal lover, the sort of person you feel really safe with. Talking to her now there's something about her that doesn't seem to have changed: she's still got a really, really positive outlook. Somehow, she still sees the best in people. And yet she unjustly ended up with a criminal record.”
* Monica Dolan previously played Anne Darwin in The Thief, His Wife and The Canoe. She’s played serial killer Rose West in Appropriate Adult, and has also starred in the movie Pride, Alan Bennett’s Talking Heads, My Name Is Leon, The Dig, W1A, The Witness for the Prosecution, A Very English Scandal, Catastrophe and The Casual Vacancy. Monica is one of the stars guest starring in the 2023 series of Black Mirror.
Julie Hesmondhalgh as Suzanne Sercombe
Julie Hesmondhalgh plays Alan Bates’ partner, Suzanne Sercombe. Julie previously won our hearts playing Hayley Cropper in Coronation Street and then went on to star in Broadchurch, Cucumber, The Trouble With Maggie Cole, The A Word, Doctor Who, The Pact and You & Me.
Who else is starring in Mr Bates vs The Post Office?
Mr Bates vs The Post Office boasts a star-studded cast including Will Mellor (Coronation Street, Hollyoaks, No Offence) as victimised sub-postmaster Lee Castleton and Amy Nuttall as his wife Lisa Castleton, while Katherine Kelly (Coronation Street, Mr Selfridge, Gentleman Jack) and Lia Williams (The Crown) play Post Office executives Angela Van den Bogerd and Paula Vennells.
Also starring are Alex Jennings (This Is Going to Hurt, The Crown) as James Arbuthnot, Ian Hart (The Responder) as Bob Rutherford, Clare Calbraith (Grace, Anne) as Gina Griffiths, Shaun Dooley (Gentleman Jack, It’s A Sin) as Michael Rudkin, Amit Shah (Happy Valley) as Jasgun Singh, Lesley Nicol (Downton Abbey) as Pam Stubbs, Pip Torrens is Mr Justice Fraser, Colin Tierney is Martin Griffiths, John Hollingworth is James Hartley and Adam James (The Suspect, Vigil) as Patrick Green QC.
Will Mellor says: "“Lee Castleton is what you’d class as an everyday guy. He's got his wife and two children and he runs the local Post Office. He’s just an average person, like most of these people are. And then he suddenly sees some discrepancies showing up on his system as well as some shortfalls. It's a few thousand pounds and so he obviously thinks there's something wrong with the system, because his calculations are right.
“It all starts to go wrong from there: the Post Office deny that there's any fault at their end and though Lee says that he hasn’t taken the money they say he’s going to have to pay it back. And it just spirals from there. Lee believes all he has to do is tell the truth and it will be fine, his name will be cleared. He believes in British justice. Meanwhile this whole thing gets out in to the public domain, and people are spitting at his children, swearing at him in the street, because he’s been ‘stealing from old people,’ in his role as a subpostmaster.”
Who is the real Alan Bates?
Alan Bates, who is played by Toby Jones in Mr Bates Vs The Post Office, gives his take on the events...
How did your story come to be told as a TV series?
Alan Bates says: “Following the judgements and the court findings about how the Post Office had lied and covered up the true facts about all the problems with its Horizon system there was quite a lot of publicity. A number of people from different production teams began to contact me. Natasha [Bondy] at Little Gem approached me and the series and documentary came from there.
And yet it was a story that was overlooked for so long...
“It was. The biggest problem with all of this is that the Post Office decided to take an approach of utter denial about everything, an approach which was effectively a threat to sue anyone who dared say otherwise. Over the years we've gone through a whole host of other processes but the Post Office just kept on assuring everyone that everything was fine and the system was robust and there were no problems with it. There were numerous letters to MPs and all sorts of evidence was building up, but it wasn't until we got the Post Office in front of the judiciary, when they couldn't keep the evidence covered up any more or control the narrative, that the truth started to be exposed. But it was a long haul getting there.”
What kept you going?
“I’d worked with these types of systems before we’d taken on the business with the Post Office, and although they had been far smaller systems I had enough experience to suspect the truth at a very early stage, and it didn't matter what they said: they were wrong, and I knew they were wrong. My problem was trying to prove it, because obviously they wouldn't release damning documents and as we now know numerous documents were being shredded and a major cover up was underway. Yet when you know you're right — technically right —you just keep going. The fact that it was a network system and they were saying there was no third party or remote access to Horizon seemed a nonsense, as any networked system has the potential for allowing remote access somewhere along the line if you have the means of accessing it. And that was even apart from all the bugs in the system, which we now know were in the 8 tens of thousands.”
Mr Bates vs The Post Office episode guide
Here's a brief lowdown on the four episodes of Mr Bates vs The Post Office with a few spoilers so do look away if you don't want to know...
Episode 1
After a new computer system called Horizon is rolled out across the country, mysterious financial losses start to appear in village Post Office tills. But when subpostmasters Alan Bates, Jo Hamilton, Noel Thomas and Lee Castleton seek help, the Post Office insists that each of them is the only one having problems. Alan refuses to believe it. And when the Post Office goes on to accuse, harass and even prosecute subpostmasters for the shortfalls, Alan leads the fight back. Their lives, livelihoods and good names destroyed, his little band decide to try to clear their names.
Mr Bates vs The Post Office episode 1 recap: who is Alan Bates?
Episode 2
Alan and his friends meet Sam Kaur, due to stand trial and suffering mentally, and Michael Rudkin, who has inside knowledge of Horizon. Jo and Alan take their cause to James Arbuthnot MP in Westminster, who persuades the Post Office to hire an independent investigator. As Bob Rutherford starts work, he finds evidence of faults in the IT system, and becomes convinced of the honesty of the subpostmasters. Bob’s explosive report rattles Post Office boss, Paula Vennells, who approaches Alan personally to find a solution. But can Alan trust Paula to pursue the truth at any cost?
Mr Bates vs The Post Office episode 2 recap: more secrets are revealed
Episode 3
Alan and Paula together set up a mediation scheme so that subpostmasters can apply for compensation. But for Martin Griffiths, pursued by the Post Office for alleged shortfalls of £60,000, it all comes too late; the desperate father of two dies by suicide. Alan is frustrated by slow progress and bureaucracy hampering the mediation, and James Arbuthnot MP publicly accuses the Post Office of sabotaging it. Two strangers bring new hope: a whistleblower, and a lawyer who thinks Alan finally stands a chance of raising the money to see the Post Office in court.
Mr Bates vs The Post Office episode 3 recap: Mediation
Episode 4
At the Royal Courts of Justice, Alan and his friends give evidence on behalf of their army of 555 subpostmasters. All hangs on whether nervous whistleblower Richard Roll can describe what happened behind the scenes at the computer giant, Fujitsu. Shockingly, the Post Office tries to dismiss the Judge for bias. But Alan’s side is running out of money, and he is forced to settle. Jo leads the successful appeal to have their unfair criminal convictions overturned at last. But though the truth comes out, and their legal victory is complete, there’s no money left for compensation for their losses.
Mr Bates vs The Post Office ending explained: what happened in episode 4?
Behind the scenes and more on Mr Bates vs The Post Office
Mr Bates vs The Post Office is written by acclaimed screenwriter Gwyneth Hughes (Tom Jones, Honour, Vanity Fair) and produced by ITV Studios and Little Gem. The drama is directed by James Strong (Broadchurch, Crime, Vigil) and produced by Chris Clough (World On Fire, The Missing). It will be executive produced by Patrick Spence (A Spy Among Friends, Maternal) for ITV Studios, Gwyneth Hughes, Natasha Bondy and Ben Gale on behalf of Little Gem (Emily Atack: Asking For It?, Paul Merson: Football, Gambling and Me), James Strong and Joe Williams (Litvinenko, Lupin).
Executive Producer, Patrick Spence, said: “We could not be more thrilled and grateful at this line up.”
Executive Producer, Natasha Bondy, said: “Despite this being a scandal that is now widely regarded as the biggest miscarriage of justice in our country’s legal history, it’s still a story that many people don’t know about. We hope this series changes that.”
ITV Commissioning Editor Helen Perry said: “We are so grateful to the extraordinary cast that have come together for this show. Their talent will help shine a spotlight on one of the most important and unbelievable stories of injustice in recent British history.”
Fact vs Fiction: the real story of injustice behind Mr Bates vs The Post Office
Between 2000 and 2013 the Post Office held hundreds of its sub postmasters and postmistresses liable for financial discrepancies shown by Horizon, its hugely expensive computerised accounts system. Despite warnings that the system was faulty, the Post Office relentlessly pursued its employees for the supposedly missing money. 736 were prosecuted and several went to jail, some whilst pregnant or with young children. Others lost their jobs, homes and savings trying to pay back the money the Post Office claimed was stolen. Many were shunned by their communities but in 2009 Alan Bates united them, forming the Justice For Subpostmasters Alliance. Together they achieved a landmark Court of Appeal decision to overturn their convictions, and after 10 years of fighting they were exonerated on all counts. But the battle to clear their names came too late for some, who died before the verdict, and many had their lives ruined as a result of the scandal.
The real Alan Bates says: "This is one of the most egregious scandals the country has ever seen and a major corporation has managed to keep it covered up for years. Thankfully this has now been exposed and the victims are finally on their way to finding the justice they deserve."
