Channel 4 has announced casting details for its upcoming drama based on the Partygate scandal.
Earlier this year, the broadcaster revealed plans for a new docudrama that would “take viewers inside No 10 as staff partied while the Covid death toll soared and the country diligently observed lockdown restrictions”.
On Wednesday, Channel 4 shared more information about the show, including that it would focus on two fictional Special Advisors, to be played by Georgie Henley and Ophelia Lovibond.
It has also been revealed that impressionist Jon Culshaw will be playing the role of then-prime minister Boris Johnson – albeit in voice form only, as the character will apparently not be seen on screen.
Channel 4 has said that the show, titled simply Partygate, will “tell the inside story in dramatic re-enactments interwoven with news archive footage and documentary interviews, showing the horrors of Covid unfold across the nation, while staff at Number 10 kicked back at a string of parties lubricated by quantities of alcohol”.
“Partygate will juxtapose the revelry inside the nation’s seat of power with the hardship and sacrifice being experienced across the rest of the country,” a press release added.
Also joining the cast will be Phil Daniels, Fleabag and Mamma Mia! star Hugh Skinner and Charlotte Ritchie, whose credits include Feel Good, Fresh Meat and Call The Midwife, as well as Rebecca Humphries, Tom Durant-Pritchard, Kimberly Nixon, Craig Parkinson, Alice Orr-Ewing, Naomi Battrick and Edwin Flay.
Ophelia Lovibond – who plays one of the fictionalised Special Advisors in Partygate – previously appeared as Carrie Johnson in another docudrama set during the Covid pandemic, This England.
The six-part series featured Sir Kenneth Branagh as Boris Johnson, who used prosthetics to help him get into character as the former PM.