CHRISTOPHER STEVENS: ITV’s take on the Stonehouse saga provides a jaunty portrait of the chancer

Today, MP John Stonehouse does not have to fake his own death. Facing bankruptcy, his political career in tatters and his marriage on the brink, he was able to rehabilitate himself simply by continuing I’m A Celebrity.

There’s a hint of I’m A Celeb’s Matt Hancock in Stonehouse (ITV), starring Matthew Macfadyen as the dodgy contender once tipped to be a future Labor prime minister.

He’s so insufferably smug, so selfish and selfish…not to mention horny.

One moment sums him up nicely, when he’s at the movie theater with his bit-on-the-side secretary, Sheila (Emer Heatley), dipping greedily into her popcorn – until he grabs the box and takes it without so much as a glance. to throw at her.

It’s unbelievable that Stonehouse has had as long a political career as he has. It doesn’t matter to fool the spies as he was spying for the Czech Security Service – a bunch of boy scouts could have mistaken him for a wrong ‘un’.

This three-part drama, running tonight and tomorrow, is gleefully tongue-in-cheek, played for fun and giggles, with a bouncing foxtrot soundtrack straight out of Jeeves and Wooster.

That’s a bit of a missed opportunity, as Ms. Stonehouse is played by Macfadyen’s real-life wife, Keeley Hawes – the first time they’ve starred together on television since Spooks, the noughties spy movie where they met.

Both are actors with deceptive depth. Fans of HBO’s Succession know Macfadyen is enchanting as pathetic, scheming executive Tom Wambsgans, who survives every radioactive scandal and runs like a cockroach.

Stonehouse pictured with his wife Barbara at a press conference months after his escape

And Hawes is unique for her ability to be motherly in one role, as The Durrells’ matriarch Louisa, and icy glamorous in the next – as the oversexed Secretary of the Interior in Bodyguard, for example.

Together they could have delivered a hideous portrait of a political marriage: the unspoken blackmail, the delicate balance of power, like two little dancers twirling on a musical box full of dynamite.

None of that is attempted here. Barbara Stonehouse is clearly much smarter than her husband, but she chooses not to know what he is up to. When she finds him stashing suitcases in the bedroom closet, or arguing with the police in a hushed voice on the phone, she remains silent… though the clouds of suspicion on her face speak volumes.

Keeley’s best silence comes when she is first introduced to Sheila. Stonehouse looks uncomfortably guilty for a moment, then decides he can get away with it. The frost in his wife’s eyes tells us that she knows exactly what’s going on.

We have to sympathize with her, because Stonehouse is such a pompous idiot that it’s hard to care what happens to him. His downfall begins during a 1960s trade mission to Czechoslovakia, when his sultry translator declares over dinner that she adores his unbridled masculine charisma.

The next morning, Czech secret agents take Stonehouse aside and show him explicit footage from the hotel room, apparently filmed through a peephole in the ceiling. The Soviets had a word for such films: Kompromat. Mr Stonehouse didn’t need a translation.

But his response to their proposal betrayed both his stupidity and his cheap bribe: “Would you like me to spy for you?” Would I get paid?’

Whether for legal reasons or simply because it’s funnier, the drama makes it clear that Stonehouse has betrayed nothing of importance to the Eastern Bloc. His best scoop was the plans for the Concorde, which had already been announced by the French media.

“You’re the worst spy I’ve ever encountered, ever,” complains his Czech escort. He’s definitely not Kim Philby. Arriving at the Czech embassy to deliver another batch of non-secrets, he bellows into the front door intercom, “It’s John Stonehouse.” Officer Twister!’

Prime Minister Harold Wilson (Kevin McNally) is also clueless. He has a few crushing lines – one about the Queen’s opinion of the socialist Tony Benn (‘Frankly, I’ve never heard her so raucous’) and one about the general lack of sexiness on the Labor front bench.

His wife Mary thinks most men look like battered pans. That must be why Private Eye referred to the government as Harold’s Kitchen Cabinet in the 1970s.

Margaret Thatcher makes a cameo appearance, with only one line of dialogue. At least she’s played by a woman, actress Devon Black. That’s an improvement on C4’s hideous Prince Andrew: The Musical last week… when the Iron Lady was played by drag queen Baga Chipz.