Although Matthew Rhys can currently be seen in Apple TV’s Widow’s Bay, more recently starred in Netflix’s The Beast in Me and is set for a role in the second season of Presumed Innocent, the actor has now been confirmed for a brand new leading role in a BBC drama.
Rhys is set to lead the cast of Dragon Slayers (and also serve as an executive producer) as Sir Harry Evans, an upcoming factual drama that will explore the work of the late former editor of The Sunday Times, “whose Insight team became a byword for investigative journalism and broke some of the biggest stories in UK history,” as per the official synopsis.
The six-part series – of which one episode will be a feature-length 90 minutes – will be set in the ’70s and will dig into some of the biggest stories that Harry and his team covered, all grounded in research and insight from those closest to the British-American journalist, as well as his family and widow Tina Brown CBE.
Evans was editor of The Sunday Times for a number of years, from 1967 to 1981, before moving on to become editor of The Times for just one year before Rupert Murdoch’s takeover.
Perhaps one of Evans’s greatest legacies is his impact on campaigning journalism, with his tenure at The Sunday Times being best remembered for his fight to get compensation for mothers who had taken the morning sickness drug, thalidomide.
Dragon Slayers will be written by Peter Bowker, who is best known for his work on World On Fire, Blackpool and The A Word with The Cage’s Al Mackay in the director’s chair.
The synopsis for Dragon Slayers adds: “Harry’s Insight team took on powerful corporations, the legal establishment and often the Government itself. Their commitment was to the readers of the newspaper and to the truth – often hidden, and sometimes dangerous to find.
“They fought for the victims of Thalidomide, unmasking the cover-ups that kept the public in the dark about the scandal, they worked to uncover the truth behind the DC-10 crash – then the world’s worst air disaster, and they faced down treason charges in exposing Kim Philby as one of the most successful spies of the 20th century.”
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On the announcement of the series and Rhys’s casting, series writer Pete Bowker said in a statement: “Telling the story of Harry Evans and the work of his Insight team is both a privilege and a joy. And having Matthew leading the cast is more than we could have hoped for.
“All of us are now united by a desire to honour the passion, doggedness and humour of this remarkable group of people. I hope the drama will make us take a fresh look at both journalism and that much maligned decade – the 1970s.”
Lindsay Salt, director of BBC Drama, also said: “Dragon Slayers is a rollercoaster story, each episode gripping and powerful, written with Pete Bowker’s signature wit and sense of purpose. The investigative stories which were broken by Harry and his team carry as much power and purpose today as they did at the time. It’s a real coup that the wonderful Matthew Rhys will star as the iconic Harry Evans.”
As of now, a release date for the series has not yet been announced but we can anticipate that further casting will be announced in due course once production gets underway.
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Dragon Slayers will be coming to BBC One and iPlayer.
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