The Alan Clark Diaries (BBC Drama, John Hurt, Jenny Agutter)

BBC drama The Alan Clark Diaries offered up the dramatised memoirs of MP Alan Clark (John Hurt) as he works as a government minister during the 1980s. Clark was always something of a flamboyant and often controversial MP. The diaries covered the years of his time in parliament from 1983 up to his death in 1999. Clark never achieved his ambition of becoming a member of the Cabinet but his diaries cast a wry and withering glance on the Tory party of the era.

Hurt is naturally perfect as Clark, he told the BBC at the time “my reason for doing The Alan Clark Diaries is that I’ve always enjoyed playing individuals and you can’t get more individual than Alan Clark, who was larger than life. That was exactly the appeal of the role.”

The series is mostly based on In Power, which was volume two of Clark’s diaries.

Cast: John Hurt as Alan Clark; Jenny Agutter as Jane (Clark’s wife); Victoria Smurfit as X (Clark’s secret mistress); Julia Davis as Jenny Easterbrook (Clark’s secretary)

Writer: Jon Jones / Diaries: Alan Clark / Script Supervisor: Alice Bell / Script Consultant: Andrew Davies /Production Design: Catrin Meredydd / Associate Producer: Michael Robins / Executive Producers: Phillippa Giles, Richard Fell, Laura Mackie / Producer: Kate Lewis / Director: Jon Jones

UK / BBC Two / 6×30 minute episodes / 15 January – 19 February 2004