Matthew Macfadyen is in a hotel in Soho. And the star of Succession, Pride and Prejudice, Quiz and Spooks is guffawing – he has a great guffaw, as fans of Tom Wambsgans will know – as he ponders his latest role as disgraced 1970s MP John Stonehouse. The parallels in the story to the recent antics of former Health Secretary Matt Hancock are just too funny.
The story told in is extraordinary. I mean, you wouldn’t get a sitting MP disappearing to Australia in the middle of a parliamentary session – when he arguably should be being investigated by the police – in search of reinvention these days, would you? And… we are back to Hancock. “Even before Australia and all the rest, it’s bonkers, isn’t it?” says Macfadyen. “There is a vanity about Stonehouse. Which you are able to see in certain modern
