The Stage

Actress Walters to play Whitehouse in BBC2 drama Filth

Published Wednesday 18 April 2007 at 14:00 by Matthew Hemley

Julie Walters will play renowned TV decency campaigner Mary Whitehouse in a one-off drama for BBC2.

Called Filth: The Mary Whitehouse Story, the 90-minute production will take place in the sixties, during the time Whitehouse kicked off her campaign to clean up TV. Her crusade began after hearing the Beatles use the word ‘knickers’ in a programme broadcast by the corporation.

The drama, made by independent production company Wall to Wall, will also star Hugh Bonneville as then BBC director general Hugh Carleton Greene.

Walters said: “I am very excited to be playing Mary Whitehouse and to be looking at the time when she attacked the BBC and started to make her name.”

BBC commissioning editor for independent drama Lucy Richer said: “This revealing film brings to light the controversy that marked the launch of BBC2, whose groundbreaking programmes so infuriated Mary Whitehouse.

“The clash of values between Mary and Hugh Carleton Greene is a battle of hearts and minds, an entertaining portrait of a time which shaped the TV we watch today.”

Filth: The Mary Whitehouse Story joins a slate of forthcoming dramas for the channel, including ones on Robert Maxwell and Daphne du Maurier.

It will be broadcast later this year and was commissioned by BBC controller of fiction Jane Tranter.