BritBox & ITV Join Forces for Royal True Crime Story 'The Lady'
BritBox and ITV are joining forces with the producers behind The Crown to bring you your next royal obsession: A four-part drama called The Lady. A story that made global headlines, it's got it all: A royal confidante, a grisly murder, and a subsequent scandalous trial.
The series is set to dramatize the story of Jane Andrews, the former royal dresser for Sarah Ferguson, Duchess of York, who was convicted of murdering her lover, Thomas Cressman, in 2001. A girl from a working-class background, she answered an ad in the magazine The Lady and wound up with a job in Buckingham Palace. Her new role allowed her to move among the upper echelons of English high society, and attain a lifestyle that she likely never would have had access to otherwise. Heartbroken when she was released from her position after nine years of service, she had a string of relationships that ended poorly before pinning all her hopes on a romance with Cressman, a charismatic businessman. But when he admitted he wasn't going to marry her, things took a dark turn.
"When Jane Andrews was tried for the murder of Thomas Cressman in 2001 it made headlines around the world," writer Debbie O'Malley (Harlots) said in a statement. "But behind those headlines, lay a much more complex, painful, and thought-provoking story – an exploration of female ambition and human frailty and a devastating chain of events that ended in the taking of a man's life. And this story, tied up with our national preoccupation with class and our ongoing obsession with the Royal family, feels every bit as relevant now as it did twenty years ago."
