The best terrestrial TV series of the year so far, The Hack is Mr Bates vs The Post Office meets All the President’s Men. It’s the handiwork of Adolescence co-writer Jack Thorne and follows the 10-year investigation into the UK phone hacking scandal that culminated in the Leveson Enquiry and the closure of the News of the World.
It’s cast to the nines, too. The supporting cast boasts Toby Jones, Dougray Scott, Steve Pemberton, Adrian Lester, Eve Myles, Rose Leslie, Neil Maskell and Laura Pulver, each bringing their A-game to the real public figures in this high-stakes story.
But the stars of the 7-part show are obvious: David Tennant as campaigning The Guardian journalist Nick Davies and Robert Carlyle as dogged Met Police detective Dave Cook. The pair find themselves united by a quest to uncover the widespread use of phone tapping by the News of the World newspaper in the noughties.
A rousing journalism and police procedural in one, it’s full of twists, blind alleys, epic nastiness and even more epic levels of moral courage.
What is The Hack about?
Nick Davies (Tennant), fresh from publishing a book, Flat Earth News, about the PR-ification of journalism, gets a tip-off from a source known as Mr Apollo (Lester) that celebrities’ voicemail messages are being hacked by private investigators. With the support of his editor Alan Rusbridger’s (Jones), the reporter pursues the story. And pursues. And pursues. The power of the News of the World and its proprietor, Rupert Murdoch (Pemberton), strikes such fear that victims don’t come forward and leads go cold.
For Detective Chief Supt Dave Cook, it all starts innocuously enough: he appears on Crimewatch appealing for witnesses to the unsolved 1987 murder of private investigator Daniel Morgan in a south east London pub car park. He’s nervous – it’s live TV – but it’s nothing out of the ordinary in his line of work. In fact, his wife, Jacqui Hames (Eve Myles), works on the show. But his TV appearance will soon make him a hacking and intimidation target for the same private investigators that hold the key to Davies’s story.
Who stars in the series?
Alongside Tennant (Doctor Who), Trainspotting’s Carlyle and Detectorists’ Jones, The Hack also stars The Guest’s Eve Myles as Cook’s wife, Crimewatch presenter Jacqui Hames, and Elisabeth Hopper is Davies’ ex-wife Caroline.
Game of Thrones’ Rose Leslie is lawyer Charlotte Harris who works with Davies to seek justice for her clients. Cold Feet and Toast of London’s Robert Bathurst plays disgraced PR guru Max Clifford. Kevin Doyle (Happy Valley) is Cook's boss, Met assistant commissioner John Yates, and Mark Stobbart plays News of the World editor and Tory comms chief Andy Coulson.
Dougray Scott is ex-PM Gordon Brown, a key figure in the latter stages of the series, where Neil Maskell’s Panorama reporter Glen Campbell also plays a key role. Lisa McGrillis is another BBC journalist: Radio 4’s Today programme presenter Sarah Montague. Inside No.9’s Steve Pemberton is media mogul Rupert Murdoch, and actress and hacking victim Sienna Miller is played by Emmerdale’s Georgia Jay.
The men at the centre of the Morgan murder investigation are Jonathan Rees (Andrew Whipp), Glenn Vian (Jay Simpson) and Garry Vian (Ricci Harnett). Another Thrones alumnus, Paul Kaye, plays criminal Gary Eaton, whose offer to testify in the reopened Morgan murder case spins the case off in unexpected directions.
Where was The Hack filmed?
The Guardian office scenes were recreated in an Uxbridge office building
The hero location is definitely The Guardian’s editorial offices. In the period charted in the series, they were in Farringdon, but The Hack recreates them with uncanny accuracy in an Uxbridge office. ‘Alan Rusbridger and Nick Davies visited The Guardian set… and Alan was blown away,’ remembers executive producer Patrick Spence. ‘Because our production designer Anna Higginson had managed to bring to life so many details from Alan’s actual office. The books he had, his shelves, the photos, everything.’
Cook and Davies meet at Westminster’s Victoria Tower Gardens
It’s not as covert as, say, a dark multi-storey car park, but this riverside spot a few hundred yards from Parliament feels like a symbolic place for Cook and Davies’ regular meet-ups – and their efforts to shine light on the powerful but corrupt. Sources-turned-friends, the relationship between these two toiling, suffering professionals is the heartbeat of The Hack.
The Morgan investigation unfolds at Custom House in London
The Croydon police station where Cook and his team worked to uncover the Morgan murderers was replicated at the old customs duty hub on Lower Thames Street. In a strange twist, Cook himself once worked in the building. ‘He only came on set a couple of times, and one of the times was at Custom House,’ says Carlyle. ‘I saw him that day and he said, “Being back here after all of these years, I’m like a ghost going through these corridors.”’ The location also doubled for the Parliamentary Select Committee hearings.
Cook meets his star witness at The Coppid Beech hotel in Berkshire
This Bracknell hotel plays host to the arrival of stressed-out ex-con Gary Eaton (Paul Kaye), a high-maintenance witness who represents the chance for Cook and co to finally crack the Morgan case.
When can I watch The Hack?
The first episode airs at 9pm on Wednesday, September 24 on ITV1, with following instalments landing weekly at the same time. All 7 episodes are available to stream now on ITVX.
Is there a trailer?
Watch the teaser below.
