{"id":13482,"date":"2022-04-07T08:00:51","date_gmt":"2022-04-07T06:00:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.radiotimes.com\/?p=1622842"},"modified":"2022-04-07T08:35:16","modified_gmt":"2022-04-07T06:35:16","slug":"anne-darwin-is-unreliable-narrator-in-new-drama-says-monica-dolan","status":"publish","type":"rss_feed","link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/rss_feed\/anne-darwin-is-unreliable-narrator-in-new-drama-says-monica-dolan\/","title":{"rendered":"Anne Darwin is \u201cunreliable narrator\u201d in new drama, says Monica Dolan"},"content":{"rendered":"

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By James Hibbs\n \t\t<\/p>

Published: Thursday, 07 April 2022 at 12:00 am<\/p>

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The Thief, His Wife and the Canoe tells the unbelievable true story of John Darwin<\/a>, who faked his own death on a canoeing trip in 2002 to claim the insurance money.<\/p>\n

However, Monica Dolan has now revealed that it\u2019s actually her character, John\u2019s then-wife Anne, who narrates the drama \u2013 and it seems we should take what she says with a pinch of salt.<\/p>\n

Anne was in on the fraud with John, even keeping the secret that he was still alive from her children, so it makes sense that she should be the one to tell this stranger-than-fiction story.<\/p>\n

When asked what appealed to her about The Thief, His Wife and the Canoe<\/a>, Dolan said: \u201cWhat\u2019s not to like about it? It\u2019s an astonishingly interesting relationship between John and Anne. It\u2019s also a series of events that is incredibly bizarre, and yet if you follow what they were trying to do, every individual event makes sense.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of the things I found very, very clever is that Anne is narrating the story, so there\u2019s this whole issue of her mendacity. How true will her narration be? How much of what she is saying is genuine?<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery scene has been illuminating about how people from all these different bodies \u2013 the police, the family liaison unit and her legal representatives \u2013 viewed her.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Monica Dolan as Anne Darwin and Eddie Marsan as John Darwin<\/span><\/figcaption> ITV<\/i><\/span><\/div>\n

The couple\u2019s deception was eventually uncovered in 2007, five years after John\u2019s disappearance, when a recent photograph of the couple in Panama<\/a> surfaced.<\/p>\n

Dolan continued: \u201cThere\u2019s so much to be played in terms of \u2018how good a liar is she?\u2019 If you\u2019re lying badly, it makes other people look stupid, and they can\u2019t all have been stupid in this story.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe audience know she\u2019s lying, and there\u2019s no mileage in making it too obvious. Also, I don\u2019t think John could have achieved what he did without her, and yet she inspires sympathy in people. It\u2019s a terrific tale about an unreliable narrator.\u201d<\/p>

The four-part series will air later this month on ITV, so viewers don\u2019t have long to wait until they can decide just how much they trust Dolan\u2019s version of Anne Darwin.<\/p>\n

Read more:<\/strong><\/p>\n