Churchill's Secret is a British drama television film first broadcast on ITV1 on 28 February 2016. The screenplay was written by Stewart Harcourt based on the book The Churchill Secret: KBO by Jonathan Smith. It stars Michael Gambon as Winston Churchill and Romola Garai as Millie Appleyard, his nurse. Production was supported by PBS, which screened the film as part of its Masterpiece anthology.
In summer 1953, some eighteen months after Churchill has become Prime Minister of the United Kingdom for a second time, he suffers a serious stroke. Although his illness is kept as secret as possible, when it is unclear whether he will recover, his political friends and foes begin to plot who will be his successor. His wife takes him to their country home, where he is nursed back to health by Nurse Millie Appleyard.
Gambon's casting was announced in May 2015. [1] In June, it was announced that the actress Romola Garai had taken the role of Millie Appleyard. [2]
Filming took place at West London Film Studios for various interior shots.
Sir Michael John Gambon is an Irish-English actor. Regarded as one of Ireland and Britain's most distinguished actors, he is known for his work on stage and screen. Gambon started his professional acting career training under Laurence Olivier as one of the original members of the Royal National Theatre. Over his six decade career in film, television and the theatre, Gambon has garnered multiple accolades including three Olivier Awards, two Screen Actors Guild Awards, and four BAFTA Awards. Gambon gained international prominence for his portrayal of Professor Albus Dumbledore in the Harry Potter film series from 2004 to 2011, replacing the late Richard Harris.
Timothy Sydney Robert Hardy was an English actor who had a long career in theatre, film and television. He began his career as a classical actor and later earned widespread recognition for roles such as Siegfried Farnon in the BBC television series All Creatures Great and Small, Cornelius Fudge in the Harry Potter film series and Winston Churchill in several productions, beginning with the Southern Television series Winston Churchill: The Wilderness Years. He was nominated for the BAFTA for Best Actor for All Creatures Great and Small in 1980 and Winston Churchill: The Wilderness Years in 1982. Aside from acting, Hardy was an acknowledged expert on the medieval English longbow and wrote two books on the subject.
Arthur Christopher John Soames, Baron Soames, was a British Conservative politician who served as a European Commissioner and the last Governor of Southern Rhodesia. He was previously Member of Parliament (MP) for Bedford from 1950 to 1966. He held several government posts and attained Cabinet rank.
Randolph Frederick Edward Spencer-Churchill was an English journalist, writer, soldier, and politician. He served as Conservative Member of Parliament (MP) for Preston from 1940 to 1945.
Clementine Ogilvy Spencer Churchill, Baroness Spencer-Churchill, was the wife of Winston Churchill, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, and a life peer in her own right. While legally the daughter of Sir Henry Hozier, her mother’s known infidelity and his suspected infertility make her paternal parentage uncertain. Clementine met Churchill in 1904 and they began their marriage of 56 years in 1908. They had five children together, one of whom died at the age of two from sepsis. During the First World War, Clementine organised canteens for munitions workers and during the Second World War, she acted as Chairman of the Red Cross Aid to Russia Fund, President of the Young Women’s Christian Association War Time Appeal and Chairman of Maternity Hospital for the Wives of Officers, Fulmer Chase, South Bucks. Throughout her life she was granted many titles, the final being a life peerage following the death of her husband in 1965. In her later years, she sold several of her husband’s portraits to help support herself financially. She died in her London home at the age of 92.
David Matthew Macfadyen is an English actor who has appeared in film, television, and theatre. He is known for his performance as Mr. Darcy in Joe Wright's Pride & Prejudice (2005), and Daniel in the Frank Oz comedy Death at a Funeral. He also portrayed John Birt in the political drama Frost/Nixon and Detective Inspector Edmund Reid in the BBC series Ripper Street. In June 2010, Macfadyen won the British Academy Television Award for Best Supporting Actor for his work on Criminal Justice.
Romola Sadie Garai is a British actress and film director. She appeared in Amazing Grace, Atonement, and Glorious 39, and in the BBC series Emma, The Hour and The Crimson Petal and the White. She has been nominated for a Golden Globe Award twice and for a BAFTA award.
Patrick Kennedy is an English actor and director.
The Jane Austen Season is a British television series of dramas based on the novels by Jane Austen. The season began on ITV at 9:00 p.m. on Sunday 18 March 2007, with Mansfield Park. The following week, Northanger Abbey was aired. The season ended with the airing of Persuasion on Sunday 1 April 2007. A repeat of the 1996 feature-length film Emma was broadcast on Friday 6 April 2007. The combined ITV and BBC series, titled The Complete Jane Austen, was shown in the United States by the PBS Masterpiece Theatre drama anthology television series from January through April 2008.
Andrew Buchan is an English stage and television actor known for his roles as Mark Latimer in the ITV drama Broadchurch (2013–17), as Scott Foster in the BBC political drama Party Animals (2007), as John Mercer in ITV drama series The Fixer (2008–09), and as William Garrow in BBC period drama Garrow's Law (2009–11).
Michelle Duncan is a Scottish actress, known for Driving Lessons (2006), Atonement (2007) and The Broken (2008). She portrayed Shelley Stern in the biographical drama film Bohemian Rhapsody (2018).
Angel, also known as the Real Life of Angel Deverell, is a 2007 British romantic drama film directed by François Ozon. It is based on the 1957 novel of the same name by Elizabeth Taylor, about the short life of a passionate young woman in Edwardian England for whom the fake world of the pulpy novels she writes replaces reality. The protagonist was portrayed by Romola Garai; other characters were played by Sam Neill, Michael Fassbender and Charlotte Rampling.
The Hon. Rupert Christopher Soames OBE is a British businessman, CEO of the outsourcing company Serco. He is a grandson of Winston Churchill, a nephew of one-time Defence Secretary Duncan Sandys and his wife Diana Churchill, of journalist Randolph Churchill, and of actress and dancer Sarah Churchill. His brother is former MP Sir Nicholas Soames.
Emma is a four-part BBC television drama serial adaptation of Jane Austen's 1815 novel Emma. The episodes were written by Sandy Welch, writer of previous BBC costume dramas Jane Eyre and North & South, and directed by Jim O'Hanlon. The serial stars Romola Garai as the titular heroine Emma Woodhouse, Jonny Lee Miller as her loyal lifelong friend Mr. Knightley, and Michael Gambon as Emma's father, Mr. Woodhouse. The serial originally ran weekly on Sunday nights on BBC One from 4 to 25 October 2009.
Sir Winston Churchill, son of Lord and Lady Randolph Churchill, and grandson of the 7th Duke of Marlborough, was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom between 26 October 1951–6 April 1955 and 10 May 1940–26 July 1945.
Mary Soames, Baroness Soames, was an English author. The youngest of the five children of Winston Churchill and his wife, Clementine, she worked for multiple public organisations including the Red Cross and the Women's Voluntary Service from 1939 to 1941, and joined the Auxiliary Territorial Service in 1941. She was the wife of Conservative politician Christopher Soames.
Simon Patrick Douro Hoare, known by the stage-name Sam Hoare, is a British actor and director known for his role as rower Dickie Burnell, alongside Matt Smith, in BBC One Olympic drama Bert and Dickie (2012).
Sir Winston Churchill died on 24 January 1965, aged 90. His was the first state funeral for a non-royal family member since Edward Carson in 1935, and as of 2022 it remains the most recent state funeral in the United Kingdom. The official funeral lasted for four days. Planning for the funeral, known as Operation Hope Not, began 12 years before Churchill's death. It was initiated after Churchill's stroke in 1953 while in his second term as the prime minister of the United Kingdom. After several revisions due to Churchill's continued survival, the plan was issued on 26 January 1965, two days after his death.
The Miniaturist is a 2017 BBC television miniseries adaptation of the debut novel of the same name by Jessie Burton. The series was directed by Guillem Morales and stars Anya Taylor-Joy, Romola Garai and Alex Hassell and first aired in two parts from 26–27 December 2017 on BBC One. In the United States, it aired in three parts from 9–27 September 2018 on PBS's Masterpiece.
Becoming Elizabeth is a drama series, created by Anya Reiss, that follows the younger years of Queen Elizabeth I. It premiered on Starz on June 12, 2022.