The Profumo Affair has been the subject of two films (The Keeler Affair, Scandal), several plays, and a West End musical. Now the BBC is planning a six-part drama about the controversy, Yahoo reports.
The Trial Of Christine Keeler is being brought to BBC1 by Amanda Coe, who adapted the novel Apple Tree Yard into a racy TV drama earlier this year.
She said: ‘I’m excited to have the opportunity to bring a fresh lens to a story that has become a powerful fable of our national identity. The astonishing story of Christine Keeler and the so-called Profumo affair is the Salem Witch Trial meets OJ Simpson – a perfect storm of gender, class, race and power that resonates into the world we’re living in today.’
Kate Triggs, executive producer for Ecosse Films, which is making the drama, said the scandal was a ‘story for our times. In 1963 Britain changed irrevocably. Old certainties about class, race and sex exploded,’she said. ‘And 19-year-old Christine Keeler was the flame that lit the touchpaper. This is a story about change.’
BBC drama controller Piers Wenger said The Trial Of Christine Keeler would offer ‘a fresh and nuanced perspective on the complex lives of the young women’ in the story.