The first trailer for BBC’s A Very British Scandal sees Claire Foy and Paul Bettany battle it out in the divorce courts.
The pair will play the Duke and Duchess of Argyll in the drama series about the couple’s high-profile split in the 1960s.
The three-part series will air on BBC One over three consecutive nights of the Christmas holidays, starting on Boxing Day.
Foy will play Margaret Campbell, Duchess of Argyll, who was famed for her charisma, beauty and style, and who dominated the front pages as a divorce featuring accusations of forgery, theft, violence, drug-taking, secret recording, bribery and an explicit Polaroid picture all played out.
The trailer shows Foy dressed in lavish outfits with fur shawls and pearl necklaces and follows from the couple’s introduction on a steam train and showcases their relationship going downhill towards their heated divorce.
In a court scene, Campbell says: “He doesn’t care about affairs, the only thing he cares about is destroying me.”
The teaser video flips through snapshot scenes of the couple’s tumultuous breakdown as a voiceover from Campbell says: “He doesn’t get to divorce me, I get to divorce him.”
A Very British Scandal will also explore the social and political climate of post-war Britain and look at attitudes towards women to ask whether institutional misogyny was widespread at the time.
The show will be made by the team behind the BBC’s A Very English Scandal, which starred Hugh Grant and Ben Whishaw as politician Jeremy Thorpe and his lover Norman Scott.
The 37-year-old actress, who previously played the young Queen Elizabeth II in the first two seasons of the Netflix series The Crown, and WandaVision and the Avengers star Bettany will be joined by Gavin & Stacey star Julia Davis, who will portray Maureen, the Marchioness of Dufferin and Ava.
Also joining the cast are Amanda Drew, Richard McCabe, Phoebe Nicholls, Camilla Rutherford, Timothy Renouf, Sophia Myles, Sophie Ward and Tim Steed.
Katherine Manners, Richard Goulding, Jonathan Aris, Oliver Chris, Nicholas Rowe and Miles Jupp will also star.
The three-part series will be written by Sarah Phelps, who previously wrote The Pale Horse, And Then There Were None and Dublin Murders, and directed by Norwegian filmmaker Anne Sewitsky.
The series will start on BBC One on Boxing Day at 9pm and will run for three consecutive nights. It will also be available on BBC iPlayer.
