John Stonehouse was serving as Labour MP for Walsall North when he staged the scheme, which allegedly followed a stressful stint serving as an informant for the Czech secret service.<\/p>\n
Once considered one of the party\u2019s rising stars, Stonehouse is now remembered as one of the more outlandish figures in its history, making the saga a natural fit for A Very English Scandal<\/a> author John Preston.<\/p>\n Comparing the two cases, he told RadioTimes.com<\/a>: \u201cWhy did both [Jeremy] Thorpe and Stonehouse behave in this completely ridiculous way? I did wonder if perhaps one of the things about being in the Westminster bubble, as it were, is that it does kind of separate you from any sense of absurdity.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd so, if Stonehouse had had a modicum of a sense of absurdity, or indeed much in the way of common sense, he would have thought, \u2018Don\u2019t do this completely mad thing.\u2019 But plainly, he didn\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n Preston pens the screenplay for ITV\u2019s three-part drama, which also stars Keeley Hawes as first wife Barbara Stonehouse and Emer Heatley as then-mistress Sheila Buckley, whom he later married.<\/p>\n Here\u2019s your guide to the stranger-than-fiction true story that inspired Stonehouse<\/a>.<\/p> John Stonehouse became an MP in 1957, winning the since-abolished seat of Wednesbury for Labour, and soon began climbing the ranks of the party.<\/p>\n It wasn\u2019t long before he was promoted to junior minister of aviation, but this rapidly growing prominence allegedly attracted the interest of Czechoslovakian secret service.<\/p>\n In the authorised history of MI5, titled The Defence of the Realm<\/a>, historian Christopher Andrew writes that Stonehouse was one of several MPs that had been spying for eastern European nations while in office.<\/p>\n However, John\u2019s daughter Julia has previously expressed her disapproval of this theory, calling it a \u201cmisrepresentation\u201d of what was really going on and revealing her father was suffering from mental illness.<\/p>\n \u201cHe was crazy. Bonkers,\u201d she said (via The Guardian<\/a>). \u201cWe knew that. He had bad mental health, coupled with the effects of Mandrax, [a sedative] also known as Quaaludes, that he was taking in 1966 while he was a government minister, flying about everywhere.\u201d<\/p>\n Julia \u2013 who wrote her own book in 2021 titled John Stonehouse, My Father: The True Story of the Runaway MP<\/a> \u2013 <\/span>is certain these deep psychological issues were most influential in driving Stonehouse to fake his own death, as opposed to his relationship with mistress Sheila Buckley or any alleged spying activity.<\/p>\n Screenwriter John Preston agrees with Andrew, however, with the show depicting Stonehouse as rather inept at espionage, failing to provide the kind of information that would make him a sound investment.<\/p>\n \u201cHe was really a very bad spy,\u201d he told press. \u201cThe Czechs had recruited quite a lot of MPs and trade union leaders at the time, none of whom I think delivered anything of any usefulness at all.<\/p>\n \u201cBut I think, even by those standards, Stonehouse was unusually bad. And I think he\u2019d sort of had this peculiar idea that any information that he imparted was, by definition, extremely important \u2013 and it wasn\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n As is standard for historical drama, some scenes are works of the writer\u2019s imagination, with one such example being in the first episode, when Stonehouse bids farewell to his family before setting off to Florida to stage his apparent demise.<\/p>\n \u201cCertainly, he must have said goodbye to his family, even though they thought he was going to be coming back however many days later \u2013 and he knew he wouldn\u2019t be coming back,\u201d explained Preston.<\/p>\n \u201cSo that is plainly a poignant moment and I was clear from the beginning that I wanted it to be both poignant and funny. Those are things that actually aren\u2019t natural bedfellows, but it seemed to me that you could actually use the humour to deepen the poignancy rather than to diminish it.\u201d<\/p>\n As depicted in the series, Stonehouse visited Miami Beach during a work trip and went for a swim in the ocean, leaving his clothes neatly folded on the beach.<\/p>\n When he never returned, the immediate assumption was that he had drowned, but in fact, he had sneaked away and flown to Australia using a fake passport in the name of a dead constituent.<\/p>\n While he was able to enter the country under his new persona, it wasn\u2019t long until he was detected by authorities and deported back to England, where he was convicted on charges of fraud, theft and deception.<\/p>\n Preston added: \u201cIn a funny kind of way, the deeper he went into the story, the more ludicrous his behaviour almost had to become to adjust to the kind of changing circumstances.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t think he was a naturally eccentric sort of man who wore a monocle or a purple flower in his buttonhole or anything like that. But I think that he sort of desperately tried to adjust to these changing circumstances, and in doing so behaved in an increasingly absurd way.\u201d<\/p>\n He was sentenced to seven years in prison, serving three of them before being given early release due to health concerns, following three heart attacks suffered while incarcerated.<\/p>\n Remarkably, the love between himself and mistress Buckley endured the botched death fake-out and his prison time, as the two went on to marry after Stonehouse\u2019s divorce from his first wife, Barbara Smith.<\/p>\n There are, again, conflicting opinions on whether Buckley had any knowledge of the ill-fated Australia scheme, with Julia Stonehouse maintaining that her eventual stepmother did not.<\/p>\n Earlier this year, she stated that newspaper reports from the time, which claimed that Stonehouse had sent a trunk to Australia in advance of his arrival containing some of Buckley\u2019s clothing, were inaccurate.<\/p>\n \u201cWe know where it went and who opened it, and it is not true that her clothes were inside. But it set a story going that has lasted decades,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n John Stonehouse died in April 1988, aged 62, following his fifth heart attack.<\/p>\n Stonehouse is coming to ITV1 on Monday 2nd January 2023. Check out more of our\u00a0Drama<\/a>\u00a0coverage or visit our\u00a0TV Guide<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Streaming Guide<\/a>\u00a0to find out what\u2019s on.<\/strong><\/p>\n The Christmas double issue of Radio Times magazine is on sale now<\/strong>\u00a0\u2013\u00a0<\/strong>subscribe now<\/strong><\/a>. For more from the biggest stars in TV, listen to the\u00a0<\/strong>Radio Times View From My Sofa podcast<\/strong><\/a>.<\/strong><\/p> <\/body><\/html>\n By David Craig Published: Monday, 02 January 2023 at 12:00 am One of the most shocking scandals of the 1970s is to be put to screen in ITV1 drama Stonehouse, which sees Succession star Matthew Macfadyen portray the titular politician who faked his own death to start a new life abroad. John Stonehouse was serving […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":28039,"template":"","categories":[1,5],"acf":[],"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2023\/01\/stonehouse-true-story-series-creator-explains-mp-who-faked-his-death.jpg",1280,853,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2023\/01\/stonehouse-true-story-series-creator-explains-mp-who-faked-his-death-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2023\/01\/stonehouse-true-story-series-creator-explains-mp-who-faked-his-death-300x200.jpg",300,200,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2023\/01\/stonehouse-true-story-series-creator-explains-mp-who-faked-his-death-768x512.jpg",768,512,true],"large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2023\/01\/stonehouse-true-story-series-creator-explains-mp-who-faked-his-death-1024x682.jpg",800,533,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2023\/01\/stonehouse-true-story-series-creator-explains-mp-who-faked-his-death.jpg",1280,853,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2023\/01\/stonehouse-true-story-series-creator-explains-mp-who-faked-his-death.jpg",1280,853,false]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"importmanagerhub@sprylab.com","author_link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/author\/importmanagerhubsprylab-com\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"By David Craig Published: Monday, 02 January 2023 at 12:00 am One of the most shocking scandals of the 1970s is to be put to screen in ITV1 drama Stonehouse, which sees Succession star Matthew Macfadyen portray the titular politician who faked his own death to start a new life abroad. John Stonehouse was serving…","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed\/28038"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/rss_feed"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28039"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28038"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28038"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Stonehouse true story<\/strong><\/h2>\n
![\"""\"](\""https:\/\/images.immediate.co.uk\/production\/volatile\/sites\/3\/2022\/12\/stonehouse-cast-90cb6ca.jpg?quality=90&resize=620%2C413"\" "\\"\"\"\\"\/")
<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture><\/div>![\"""\"](\""https:\/\/images.immediate.co.uk\/production\/volatile\/sites\/3\/2022\/12\/stonehouse-macfadyen-2-5971b86.jpg?quality=90&resize=620%2C413"\" "\\"\"\"\\"\/")
<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture><\/div>![\"""\"](\""https:\/\/images.immediate.co.uk\/production\/volatile\/sites\/3\/2022\/12\/stonehouseepisode-1-31fc9f0.jpg?quality=90&resize=620%2C413"\" "\\"\"\"\\"\/")
<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture><\/div>![\"""\"](\""https:\/\/images.immediate.co.uk\/production\/volatile\/sites\/3\/2022\/12\/stonehouse-macfadyen-621cd3f.jpg?quality=90&resize=620%2C413"\" "\\"\"\"\\"\/")
<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture><\/div>
","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"