Madeleine McCann Flogs The Suspicions of Mr Whicher

MADELEINE McCann is being used to market The Suspicions of Mr Whicher, a new ITV series based on the book of the same name.

Kate Summerscale’s tome has been adapted for ITV by Hat Trick Productions. The story goes that in 1860, three-year-old Saville Kent is murdered. His body is hidden in the servants’ toilet.

Madeleine McCann: Saville Kent, Fictional Detectives And D-Day II

An Inspector Jonathan “Jack” Whicher investigates.

Behind the seemingly respectable middle-class façade of the Kent family, he discovers adultery, insanity and jealousy in a world populated by gossiping servants, a wicked stepmother and rebellious children.

So. What’s it got to do with Our Maddie, the four-year-old child who went missing on the Algarve? Producer Mark Redhead knows how Madeleine McCann, that benchmark for missing children over the past three centuries, relates to his show:

“This a very modern story. It gripped the country in the way that the case of Madeleine McCann has done in our day. It became an obsession for the press and was even debated in the House of Commons. Perhaps for the first time, the Rode Hill House murder exposed the darkness that lay behind the solid front door of the respectable English home. As a story it is riveting but also deeply touching.”

Madeleine McCann: Cluedo, Kate Summerscale Wins And Head Shaving The Tesco’s Girl

Touching? As touching as using the name of a missing child in your trial for a TV show?

Usually TV is more subtle in using current afraid and concerns to add spice and bite to a programme. But here the producer is actually evoking the name of a missing child to make his entertaining show look relevant and – lest we forget – “touching”…

Madeleine McCann is missing – still missing. But she is in the press release…

Madeleine McCann: Selling Books And Fact As Fiction

Spotter: Anorakaren