A Liar's Life

Damian Lewis plays Jeffrey Archer in a funny, fictionalised version of his life.

by Mary Comerford, Ulster TV Choice, November 2002

Jeffrey Archer's life reads so much like one of his novels that it was only a matter of time before someone adapted it for TV.

Jeffrey Archer: The Truth on BBC1 takes a tongue-in-cheek journey through the disgraced peer's life. Although it's based on real events, writer Guy Jenkin, one of the creators of Drop The Dead Donkey, has blended fact and fiction to create a comic fantasy.

Damian Lewis plays Archer as a sophisticated ladies' man and general all-rounder. "It's Jeffrey's life as he might tell it. How he was the instigator of some major moments in British political history and his love affairs with the great and the good," says Damian, who starred in The Forsyte Saga and Band Of Brothers.

"I don't look anything like Jeffrey and I don't do an impression of him, although I did have to dye my hair for the role. The comedy comes from having a basic knowledge of Jeffrey and what he's done."

Damian watched a couple of documentaries and read a biography of Jeffrey in preparation for the role. However, the two did actually meet some time ago.

Jeffrey's son James and Damian were both pupils at Eton and appeared together in a play. "I was a bullying schoolmaster and James Archer played one of the boys I picked on," Damian recalls.

"Jeffrey Archer summoned me in the interval and congratulated me and asked for tickets for my first night in London's West End.

"I haven't done it because I've never acted in the West End. But I will send him a videotape of the show and say, 'Sorry about the West End, Jeff, but here's me playing you'!"

The programme is set in 2009 when Jeffrey is writing his memoirs, helped by an attractive young biographer.

Damian, who admits he felt an affinity with Jeffrey during filming, says, "I'm sure we have a couple of things in common, but I'm an old-fashioned good boy!"

Caption: Damian as Jeffrey and Polly Walker as the fragrant Mary.

Caption: Damian as Soames with Gina McKee in The Forsyte Saga.

Caption: The real Jeffrey Archer with his wife Mary and son James.