Sarah Vaughan He wrote fiction as a child, but felt his imagination evaporate as a teenager. And he didn’t try again until the week he turned forty. “I had to quit my job as a journalist in 2008 due to problems with my second pregnancy,” the author explains via video call. “I was ‘freelance’ for a time, but I hated to be. I finally agreed with my husband: Within a year at most, I would support me in writing a novel and find a publisher.”
A (published) novel about motherhood and the absurd pursuit of perfection came out of the deal. ‘Perfect cake art’followed by an unpublished but French bestseller, ‘The farm at the end of the world’. But our interviewer didn’t really know he was heading in the right direction until he had international success. ‘Anatomy of a Scandal’ (Roca Editorial) is a dark forensic thriller where he invests everything he learned during his years as a political reporter for ‘The Guardian’. On Friday the 15th, the miniseries adaptation premieres on Netflix, with producer David E. Kelley (“Big Little Lies”, “Undo”) as developer.
Michelle Dockery (Lady Mary Crawley of ‘Downton Abbey) achieved what Vaughan described as “the best character I’ve ever written”: Kate Woodcraft, a veteran lawyer, highly specialized in prosecuting sexual crimes and serving as prosecutor in the case against James Whitehouse (Rupert Dating, ‘Homeland’), the British Secretary of State for the Government and a close friend of the Prime Minister. Whitehouse accused of raping parliamentary inspector Olivia Lytton (Naomi Scott) was her boyfriend who had been madly in love for five months. Sienna Miller Does she shine in the role of the questioned man’s wife, for whatever reason or not, as never before (or indeed, as she almost always does)?
Boris Johnson’s inspiration
Reading the book and watching the series might make you think the nineties was the golden age of legal and/or erotic ‘thriller’, but the main inspiration for this plot was reality. And dream. Vaughan explains: “I hadn’t actually read about legal ‘thriller’. As a journalist, I’m always inspired by the news. A column about a football player from here in the ‘Telegraph’ was very important. [Ched Evans] He was declared not guilty after being sentenced to prison for raping a 19-year-old girl. Columnist Allison Pearson recalled hearing young women say that she wouldn’t expect to play Scrabble if the raped woman went to her hotel room. and I thought how much women judge other women’s sexuality. That night I dreamed of the mats of the conspiracy.”
Another big inspiration was Boris Johnson, whom he interviewed in 2004 about his relationship with Petronella Wyatt. He was fired from the conservative executive for lying about this mess (and not having it). “I was 32 at the time and I guess I was still a little naive,” Vaughan said. When I spoke to Johnson, I was struck by the fact that he wasn’t upset that he had lied; He has no regrets, moreover, for being such a public figure.“.
role in the series
Vaughan describes “The Anatomy of a Scandal” as a story of “abuse of power, consent and rape, not forgetting privilege”. It is also, first and foremost, the story of a woman who directs the producers. Bruna Papandrea (‘Big little lies’) y Liza Chasin (‘Mary, Queen of Scots’) will fight fiercely for adaptation. “Finally, there was a series of women. S. J. Clarkson [‘Succession’] had read the book and worked as a volunteer director. david [E. Kelley] but he has a lot of experience [la codesarrolladora] Melissa James GibsonWhoever worked on ‘House of Cards’ was very helpful on the political side.”
The author himself serves as executive producer and “had the opportunity to take notes on possible variations in many respects. They had the final decision on everything, but I felt my voice was heard and my comments were taken into account.” Perhaps due in part to this positive experience, the same producers have acquired the rights to produce a new series for Vaughan’s recently published fifth book, ‘Reputation’.
On the other hand, the production company Roughcut TV (‘Allows Stath flats’) is producing a series from the fourth season. ‘Small disasters’, a reflection on motherhood and postpartum anxiety through the prism of psychological ‘tension’; ‘Anne noir’ not far from ‘giant’s garden’ Leyla Slimani or ‘Instinct’ Ashley Audrain. With ‘Anatomy of a Scandal’, Vaughan’s television reign has just begun.