Doctor Who Vs. Scandal

This British drama is a fictionalised
account of the Profumo affair that
rocked the British government in
1963, and premiered at the Cannes
Film Festival.
The theme song Nothing Has Been
Proved was penned and produced
by Pet Shop Boys and performed

by Dusty Springfield.
Dr. Stephen Ward (depicted here
by John Hurt) courted the rich
and famous at his London practice,
and even moved in royal circles.
He lived on the Astor's family estate
of Cliveden, and in 1961 at a party
there, Ward introduced married Tory
minister John Profumo (portrayed by
Ian McKellen) to showgirl Christine Keeler (Joanne Whalley).

They embarked on an affair, but Keeler was also sleeping with a

known Soviet spy, Captain Eugene Ivanov (Jeroen Krabbe), and

Ward observed there was the potential to start 'World War Three'.
Profumo (1915-2006) was forced to resign after lying in Parliament,

but Ward became the scapegoat for the scandal. Having supplied the

 social elite with prostitutes, he was charged with living off immoral

earnings.
The most famous moment of the osteopath's Old Bailey trial came

when his former mistress, Mandy Rice Davis (Bridget Fonda) gave

evidence. When told that Lord Astor (Leslie Phillips) had denied

paying her for sex, she replied "Well, he would wouldn't he?" When

Ward was found guilty, the accused lay in a coma following a suicide

attempt and he died days later.

The first television retelling of the story, The Trial of Christine Keeler,
was shown on BBC1 in December 2019. Originally developed for TV

 in the mid 1980s, Scandal was rejected by the BBC then Channel 4,

but was eventually released by Palace Pictures  in early 1989 - it 

featured eleven other Doctor Who cast alumni:

• McKellen provided the voice of the Great Intelligence for The Snowmen, and had a cameo in The Five(ish) Doctors Reboot
• Paul Brooke (DS John) voiced Toby for Big Finish's Year of the Pig (2006)
• Carry On actor Phillips voiced Robert Knox for Medicinal Purposes (2004), and Assassin in the Limelight (2008) - he worked with Hurt again in King Ralph
• Ronald [Gordon] Fraser (Justice Marshall) was Joseph C in The Happiness Patrol
• Iain Cuthbertson (Lord Hailsham) was Garron in The Ribos Operation
• Sarah Prince (Secretary) was Karuna in Kinda
• Raad Rawi (Aziz) voiced Prince Haasan Al-Nadyr for Who Killed Toby Kinsella? (2016), Bishop Nicholas for Ravenous 2 (2018), and Tubal, Maygo and King Hiarbas of Tunis for The Phoenicians (2019)
• Malcolm Terris (Gent) was Etnin in (episode 1 of) The Dominators, and the Co-Pilot in The Horns of Nimon
• Tariq Yunus (Khan) was Cass in The Robots of Death
• Tina Simmons (Critic) made her TV debut as an Inferno Customer in The War Machines (1)
• camera operator Simon Archer was the cinematographer on The Lodger