The broadcaster 5 has unveiled a first-look trailer that shows Martin Clunes portraying Huw Edwards in a two-part factual drama about the presenter’s public collapse. The clip presents a familiar newscaster figure unraveling as the series traces the events that led to Edwards’s exit from public life.
What does the first look at Martin Clunes reveal?
The trailer gives audiences a concentrated, dramatic glimpse of Power: The Downfall of Huw Edwards, with Martin Clunes in the central role. The two-part drama is described as following “the newsreader’s double life as it spirals out of control” before his “total exit from public life following his conviction for serious child sexual offences. ” The programme presents a portrait of a once-trusted broadcaster confronting a criminal conviction that ended a long television career.
The series foregrounds the contrast between public stature and private conduct: for decades the real-life presenter was regarded as one of Britain’s most trusted newsreaders, anchoring coverage of major national events, including the death of Queen Elizabeth II. The trailer uses that contrast to frame the drama’s tension, with Clunes cast to depict both the familiar on-screen authority and the unraveling private reality.
How is Power: The Downfall of Huw Edwards being presented and who made it?
5 describes the project as its first collaboration between its factual and scripted commissioning teams. The broadcaster has said the drama will offer a “complex, emotional and nuanced portrait” and that it builds on extensive factual research carried out over the past 12 months, including extensive first-hand interviews and co-operation from people at the heart of the scandal.
The series is directed by BAFTA-winning Michael Samuels and written by Mark Burt, who is credited with scripting the drama framework. The two-part format is intended to map the public career and the events that culminated in the conviction, which in 2024 saw Huw Edwards plead guilty to three counts of making indecent images of children and receive a six-month suspended sentence.
5 has said the drama is due to air “soon, ” though a specific release date has not been confirmed. The production’s stated reliance on months of factual research and interviews is positioned as central to its approach, aiming to combine dramatization with documentary-informed detail.
The project’s creative credentials and the casting of Martin Clunes have been foregrounded in publicity for the series. Michael Samuels’s involvement is noted by the broadcaster as bringing award-winning directing experience, while Mark Burt’s writing frames the two-part structure that traces the trajectory from public prominence to criminal conviction.
Voices tied to the production emphasize the series’ research-led approach as core to its aims: the production team frames the work as a careful, researched telling intended to examine how a high-profile life reached a sudden and shameful conclusion.
For viewers, the trailer stages a confrontation with reputation, trust and accountability; for the industry, the release marks an unusual commissioning move and a collaboration across factual and scripted divisions within 5.
Back in the darkened room where the trailer first landed, the figure of Martin Clunes — in make-up and clipped collar, the familiar cadence of a newsreader distilled into a few stark frames — now carries the weight of the fuller story the series promises to tell. The first look asks viewers to watch closely: the public face and the private life will be set side by side, and the programme is positioned to explore how both led to a public exit whose consequences the drama aims to unpack.
