Mr Bates vs the Post Office's Toby Jones made major sacrifice for show to happen

09 January 2024 , 14:34

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Mr Bates vs the Post Office's Toby Jones made major sacrifice for show to happen

New ITV drama series, Mr Bates vs the Post Office, has reignited interest in the post office scandal since its New Year's Day release.

The shocking series has sparked chatter across the country and tells the tale of one of the biggest miscarriages of justice in British legal history. Toby Jones, who stars as campaigner and former subpostmaster Alan Bates, played a key role in bringing the drama to TV screens and said it was a privilege to help retell the story - but he made a huge sacrifice in doing so.

The actor, who also appeared in Harry Potter, took a reduced fee in order for producers to meet it's estimated £8 million budget.

Toby Jones stars as Alan Bates in Mr Bates vs The Post Office (ITV)

"These kinds of four-part, very British, thoughtful dramas are massively at threat because distributors worry that it is less likely that they will recoup their investment than they would from an international thriller with lots of episodes," he confessed to The Times.

"There is a huge possibility that shows like Mr Bates will not be made in the future. Not because TV commissioners don't want them, but because they can't afford them. The financial pressures are too great."

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The series' writer, Gwyneth Hughes, also shared that she had to sacrifice some storylines and characters to fit the budget. According to her, factual dramas tend to cost more as they require a lot of research. "It isn't like a normal fictional drama where you can just sit at your desk and make it all up," she pointed out.

For those new to the show, it uncovers the horrific true tale of hundreds of subpostmasters wrongly labelled as thieves, fraudsters, and liars by the Post Office. Back in 1999, the Post Office brought a new IT system, Horizon, into use. This software had bugs in its accounting system that resulted in discrepancies worth thousands of pounds. Shockingly, the workers were blamed for the missing money, leading to some getting imprisoned and others going bankrupt.

On the Graham Norton Show, Toby spoke about the scandal, saying: "Some of them went to prison, some of them lost their minds and some of them committed suicide and this huge tragedy still goes on because they haven't been paid compensation or anything. The really cynical thing was that people were told they were on their own and no one else was experiencing problems with the IT system."

Toby also expressed hope for the drama's impact, stating: "I hope that this drama and the documentary that goes with it will also mobilise the general population again and make people feel like this has got to be sorted. Maybe even turning into an election issue."

Susan Knox