An infamous image from British crime history has been recreated for an drama about the notorious canoe couple , titled .
In 2002, the couple made headlines after former teacher John faked his own death in a canoeing accident outside their home in Hartlepool.
In reality, John brazenly lived in a bedsit next door for years, and was plotting a new life for him and Anne in Panama, unbeknownst to their sons Mark and Anthony.
Hoping hundreds of thousands of pounds of insurance would remove their debt, they even managed to convince their sons that the tragedy was real, and it was only until 2007 that the truth came out, when John returned to the UK.
They were eventually jailed for fraud and the extent of the parents’ deception shocked the world.
The famous image from 2006 – four years after John was supposed to have died – was later used to prove that Anne had known the truth all along, despite the lies she had told for years to the police, financial companies and their own sons.
The photo was taken at a Panamanian estate agents, and in the recreation featuring Monica Dolan as Anne and Eddie Marsan as John, the trio are wearing almost identical outfits.
In the story, Anne says that after the initial lie of going along with the canoe accident plot, posing for the photo was ‘easily the most stupid thing we did’.
The image was found on the internet by a woman who Googled ‘John, Anne, Panama’ and she sent it to a national newspaper.
Its existence meant Anne could no longer pretend to be shocked and pleased after her husband had turned up alive at a London police station, claiming to have amnesia.
The new four-part drama The Thief, His Wife And The Canoe, follows how the tale spun out of control from the couple’s lies.
Journalist David Leigh, the first reporter to find her in Panama, was a consultant for The Thief, His Wife And The Canoe, which was inspired by his upcoming book of the same name, and he spent days on set and location when filming took place.
About the infamous photo, he said: ‘That picture from Panama was the evidence that brought an end to the Darwins’ truly outrageous lies.
‘It was the emphatic proof that Anne Darwin had been lying about her husband’s faked death to everyone she held dear, not to mention the police and the insurance companies, for nearly six years.’
David added that he had spoken to Monica ‘to give her an accurate picture as possible of what was really going on in Anne’s mind’ over the five years of deceit.
‘It certainly wasn’t a bed of roses – far from it.
‘Monica’s portrayal of Anne, as told through the brilliant script of Chris Lang, is very powerful and I hope viewers will perhaps see her in a new, more sympathetic light after they’ve watched all four episodes.’
Eddie plays the controlling narcissist with a glint in his eye, and is shown to browbeat his wife.
Anne’s portrayal, while sympathetic, allows the audience to form their own opinion on how much guilt she must take.
Chris said: ‘You’d never have imagined that this very ordinary couple could have been hatching this extraordinary plot that they nearly got away with.
‘It’s a brilliant slice of English life.’
He added: ‘I’m sure many of us have dreamt up extraordinary solutions to our problems and then stepped back from the precipice.
‘The only difference between us and the Darwins, is that they jumped.’
Meanwhile, Eddie said he could understand John’s ‘hubris’.
He said: ‘As an actor, I go from thinking I’m going to win an Oscar one week to thinking I’m going to be driving a cab the next.
‘My self-esteem goes up and down all the time. So I can completely understand that in John.
‘He refuses to face reality and thinks he’s going to win. We all do that, especially when it comes to money.’
Monica added that he imagined Anne’s life, constantly on the edge of being caught, must have been fraught, although she admitted ‘you can’t be too sympathetic, this situation was self-imposed.’
The Thief, His Wife And The Canoe is on ITV at 9pm from Easter Sunday to Wednesday April 20.
