Comic Cruttenden to play the wartime leader

Hal Cruttenden is to play Winston Churchill in a new film based on the origins of the welfare state.

The comedian has just finished work on The Man With The Plan, written and directed by Christine Edzard.

It revolves around William Beveridge and his 1942 report that laid the groundwork for the welfare system, including the expansion of National Insurance and the creation of the National Health Service.

Although the report was popular with the public, Churchill opposed much of its implementation, warning against imposing ‘great new expenditure on the state’. 

Fellow comic Mark Thomas narrates the film, which features Simon Callow in an unspecified role and Andrew Tiernan as Nye Bevan, the father of the NHS.

The story is told from the viewpoint of a modern woman, played by newcomer Sophie Jenkin, as she looks into the Beveridge Report, which spoke of ‘five giants on the road to reconstruction’: want, disease, ignorance, squalor and idleness.

Cruttenden – who will be touring his new stand-up show Can Dish It Out But Can’t Take It  later this year – joked  this could be ‘my finest hour’ as he vowed to ‘fight hecklers and reviewers on the beaches, in the clubs and online’. 

Edzard’s work also includes the 1987 adaptation of Little Dorritt. The Man With The Plan, which earned star Alec Guinness an Oscar nomination. The Man With The Plan, is being made by her production company Sands Films.

No release date has yet been announced.

Published: 23 Jan 2025