{"id":26215,"date":"2022-11-29T01:01:47","date_gmt":"2022-11-29T00:01:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.radiotimes.com\/?p=1747198"},"modified":"2022-11-29T02:50:57","modified_gmt":"2022-11-29T01:50:57","slug":"how-russell-t-davies-influenced-itv-political-thriller-stonehouse","status":"publish","type":"rss_feed","link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/rss_feed\/how-russell-t-davies-influenced-itv-political-thriller-stonehouse\/","title":{"rendered":"How Russell T Davies influenced ITV political thriller Stonehouse"},"content":{"rendered":"

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By David Craig\n \t\t<\/p>

Published: Tuesday, 29 November 2022 at 12:00 am<\/p>

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Stonehouse writer John Preston has revealed how the work of Russell T Davies was instrumental in helping him tackle his first ever screenplay.<\/p>\n

The prolific author is known for penning bestselling books such as The Dig<\/a> and A Very English Scandal<\/a>, the latter of which chronicled the Thorpe affair and was adapted into a television miniseries by Davies in 2018.<\/p>\n

When it came time to revisit another sensational political headline from the 1970s \u2013 that of Labour MP John Stonehouse, who faked his own death to start a new life abroad \u2013 Preston wanted to handle scripting duties personally.<\/p>\n

Having no experience in the field of screenwriting, he dug out Davies\u2019s scripts for A Very English Scandal and used them as a learning resource to pick up the tricks of the trade.<\/p>

\u201cI had done A Very English Scandal and I was slightly wary of writing another non-fiction,\u201d began Preston at the Stonehouse press conference. \u201cI thought, \u2018Oh God, people will think my whole life is a ceaseless trawl through 1970s reprobates\u2019.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut if the opportunity came up to do Stonehouse<\/a> as a TV series \u2013 not as a book \u2013 for me, that was a very attractive idea because I\u2019d never written a script before\u2026 I thought, well, at least if I can do it as a script then no one can accuse me of repeating myself.\u201d<\/p>\n

Though Preston is a prolific author of fiction and non-fiction, writing a screenplay is a different skill entirely, so he required a considerable re-education to take on the challenge for Stonehouse. That\u2019s where Davies\u2019s work came in.<\/p>\n

\u201cI had Russell T Davies\u2019s scripts [for A Very English Scandal] at home so I could look at them and think, \u2018Oh, so that\u2019s how he did it\u2019,\u201d continued Preston. \u201cSo it actually did teach me a lot.\u201d<\/p>\n

Speaking more about Davies\u2019s influence, Preston exclusively told RadioTimes.com<\/a>: \u201cI think that what struck me most of all was\u2026 you can actually convey an enormous amount of information in a very short space of time in a script; far more so than when you\u2019re writing a book.\u201d<\/p>\n