Stage play to build on success of hit ITV drama Mr Bates vs The Post Office

27 January 2024 , 20:32

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The cast of hit ITV drama, Mr Bates vs The Post Office, pose in a defiant image (Image: ITV)

The hit TV drama based on the Post Office scandal really delivered for victims by ­raising awareness of their ongoing ordeal.

And now a stage play is hoping to build on that success and carry on the fight against injustice. Plans for a theatre show are under way after ITV’s Mr Bates vs The Post Office sparked a major public outcry and forced former chief executive Paula Vennells to hand back her CBE.

The satire, called False Accounts in a nod to the dodgy Horizon IT system supplied by Fujitsu, was performed in 2022 – and seen by more than 40 sub-postmasters – before a lack of funding forced a halt. Now its creators hope to raise £43,000 for a UK tour with a cast of 10.

GoFundMe donors include wronged sub-postmasters. Writer and co-director Lance Nielsen, 50, said: “As theatre is an immediate art form, we can continually update the show with new facts as they emerge [and] incorporate details the TV show couldn’t. I’ve followed the story since 2009 and felt such a great sense of injustice and knew we had to do something.

“The scandal represents so much that is wrong with society – these were ordinary people taking on a giant and our goal is to bring this story to different communities.”

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Wrongly accused Post Office worker Tracy Felstead said of the show: “Excellent acting, heart-breaking in places, funny in others. They made us proud!” More than 700 innocent sub-postmasters were jailed or financially ruined after being accused of theft between 1999 and 2015. Some committed suicide. The Post Office declined to comment on the play.

Alan Bates, was a sub-postmaster at Craig-y-Don, Llandudno from March 1998 until November 2003

It comes as victims of the infected blood scandal hope the outcry over the Post Office’s Horizon victims will boost their compensation bid.

Some 30,000 NHS patients fell ill and 3,000 died after being given blood contaminated with hepatitis C from the 1970s to the early 1990s. Only 900 survivors and victims’ partners have had an interim £100,000 payout.

Carolyn Challis, 67, contracted hepatitis C from transfusions in 1992 and 1993 as part of cancer treatment. She has had no payout due to a 1991 cut-off for claims.

The mum of three, of Devon, slammed Government inaction, saying: “It should not take another TV drama for justice to be done. I have been sentenced and imprisoned by this disease. Post Office scandal victims are totally deserving and they too have had their lives ruined. If the Government can act swiftly for them, it can for us, too. It feels like the Government is laying trauma upon trauma.”

Saskia Rowlands