Michael Gambon is to play Sir Winston Churchill in a new feature-length drama commissioned by ITV and US broadcaster PBS.
Gambon will be joined by Lindsay Duncan as Clementine Churchill in the two-hour special which is set during the summer months of 1953 when Churchill, now Prime Minister for the second time, suffers a life-threatening stroke which is kept secret from the world.
Told from the viewpoint of his young Nurse, Millie Appleyard, the drama follows his battle to recover as his long suffering wife Clemmie desperately hopes the stroke will force Winston to retire while his political friends and foe scheme to plot who will succeed him.
Meanwhile his adult children descend on Chartwell, unsure if he will pull through, as tensions within his family begin to surface.
ITV’s director of Drama, Steve November, said:“Churchill’s Secret is the extraordinary and compelling story of how one of our country’s most famous political figures battled back from life-threatening illness to hold on to power, ” said Steve.
“We’re delighted to commission Churchill’s Secret from Daybreak Pictures and to be working with Michael Gambon as Sir Winston Churchill and Lindsay Duncan as his wife Clemmie.”
Filming will begin in June 2015 in London and at Churchill’s principal family home, Chartwell in Kent.
