I knew the Huw Edwards drama would be repellent – one scene was too extreme

The Channel 5 dramatisation of Huw Edwards’s downfall is grim viewing (Picture: PA/ Metro)

Power: The Downfall of Huw Edwards begins on the pivotal day the BBC’s lead news anchor announced the Queen’s death.

It was a mighty, epoch-changing moment, carried off with such aplomb by Edwards that it was met with calls for his knighthood.

But, as the chilling new Channel 5 film tells us, this most trusted newsreader was at the same time receiving sexual images of children and grooming a young man.

The young man is Ryan Davies (Osian Morgan) – his real name has been changed, but the now 23-year-old was extensively interviewed for the making of this – a queer teen reckoning with his sexuality and mercurial step-dad on an estate in Wales.

Into this vulnerable man’s life comes a bolt from the blue message courtesy of Edwards (Martin Clunes). He is given Ryan’s number by the same creep who sends the broadcaster the child abuse material for which he is later convicted.

From that first message follows a £500 PayPal transfer. Then Ryan undresses for Edwards on a video call.

The young man is played by Osian Morgan (Picture: ©5 Broadcasting Limited/©Wonderhood Studios) Edwards orchestrates a hotel room rendezvous, which the camera never enters (Picture: ©5 Broadcasting Limited/©Wonderhood Studios)

Over the following years, Ryan and Edwards continue to message and call. At turns the significantly older Edwards begins to call boyish Ryan ‘baby’, requesting he be called ‘daddy’ in return.

Many of their texts have been dramatised verbatim. It’s as grim as it sounds.

Edwards occasionally pushes for too much, orchestrating a hotel room rendezvous which the camera never enters. We’re made to understand it does not go to plan and Ryan is told he ‘disappointed him’. This fatherly admonishment is repeated again and again.

As the abuse continues, Ryan begins to come apart, turning to drink and drugs, all bankrolled by Edwards’ bank transfers. ‘Huw doesn’t do no,’ Ryan tells the one friend he confides in about this sorry mess.

In desperation, he tells his mother. She and her husband take action, first (futilely) involving the BBC complaints department and then (successfully) with The Sun.

This was when Edwards again, dramatically, entered our lives, this time as the BBC presenter who had paid thousands in exchange for sexual images.

As the abuse continues, Ryan begins to come apart (Picture: ©5 Broadcasting Limited/©Wonderhood Studios)

You wouldn’t know it from the promo, but Morgan is the lead of the piece, coming with a smattering of credits on the likes of Emmerdale and Waterloo Road. He delivers a solid performance as Ryan, even if it does sometimes veer towards those soapy waters. 

The acting elsewhere in the cast can be a bit ‘Channel 5’ in places. The depiction of a newsroom is sort of laughable, even if I’m sure The Sun was consulted. They’ve certainly plastered the masthead around to suggest as much.

Clunes strikes a balance between the meek Welsh competence, with the needy, boozing predator in dark rooms and eternal running gear, conducting Ryan to do his bidding like a schoolteacher would. There’s also the calculating curmudgeon, always covering his own back and admonishing perceived missteps.

There are gestures to the Welsh baritone and Clunes’s cheery ears appear to have been lassoed down. He has an eyebrow affectation I’m not entirely sure is authentically Edwards, but lends an arch look.

Eventually, Ryan’s parents intervene and go to the BBC and The Sun (Picture: ©5 Broadcasting Limited/©Wonderhood Studios)

You might have no desire to get closer to Edwards’s crimes. Who could blame you? It is not strictly an ‘enjoyable’ drama. Even the cast at the press screening struggled to describe it as ‘good’ or ‘great’.

The decision to shift this from a mini-series to a film forces you to sit with what this pillar of our news media did, even if this is more of a direct-to-video film than a cinema-worthy one.

I had doubts Power: The Downfall of Huw Edwards (miserable title choice) would be able to justify itself. But it’s a compelling depiction of grooming across a vast power imbalance. For the most part, it’s respectful and toes the line that I’m sure a pack of lawyers established. 

There are disclaimers all over the place. The camera cuts around much of the gratuity. The one hideous exception is a desk-bound Edwards masturbation scene. I wanted to be doused in disinfection after watching it. That might have been the point, but when restraint had been exercised elsewhere, it felt gratuitous.

The final scene acknowledges the irony of someone spending decades delivering us the news, only to eerily become it. It doesn’t quite come off, but it certainly hammers home the severity of Edwards’s crimes, for which he did not receive any jail time.

Watching all of it, you might feel the need for that disinfectant too.

Power: The Downfall of Huw Edwards is available to watch on Channel 5‘s streaming service My5.

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