Phone-hacking drama calls in some of UK's best talent

'The Hack', in-demand writer Jack Thorne's latest project, takes the media to task with mixed results

- By Nick Hilton

In a Royal Television Society panel last year, Richard Spence, an executive producer of Mr Bates vs The Post Office, claimed that British TV was no longer in a place where it could take a punt on a show like his 2024 four-parter about the subpostmasters scandal. It's a claim that was repeated this week by prolific writer Jack Thorne, who has returned to our screens with ITV's The Hack, an in-depth look at phone-hacking, which follows hot on the heels of Thorne's other 2025 issue dramas: Toxic Town and the Emmy-sweeping goliath Adolescence.

At its centre is investigative reporter Nick Davies, played by David Tennant. He sports a leather jacket and appears perpetually frustrated about the state of journalism. "Journalists no longer have the time or the resources to do their jobs properly," he tells the Today programme. But then a story falls into his lap ("evidence that could burn, fuck and destroy everything twice over", he's told), and offers him a chance to clean up the industry's act.

Phone-hacking, an anonymous source known as Mr Apollo (Adrian Lester) informs him, is rife in the tabloid press. Davies and his editor, Alan Rusbridger (Toby Jones), then face the gruelling task of going head-to-head with News International, the monolithic media organisation run by antipodean oligarch Rupert Murdoch (Steve Pemberton).