The Hack is proof Jack Thorne needs a break

When ITV executives commissioned The Hack, the new drama series dealing with the News International phone hacking scandal, they surely hoped they were getting another Mr Bates vs. The Post Office. Not only did it star that show’s Toby Jones as – bizarrely – Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger, complete with ludicrous wig, but it was another left-leaning account of how journalistic ethics, as personified by David Tennant’s Guardian investigative writer Nick Davies, could triumph over the forces of Machiavellian wickedness. If we didn’t get the message already that Rupert Murdoch was a villainous figure, he is played in the show by none other than a prosthetics-encased Steve Pemberton, in a role that could easily have strayed out of The League of Gentlemen or Inside No 9. It sounded