It's a fair bet that Channel 5's drama 'Power: The Downfall of Huw Edwards' was always going to be a difficult watch.
However the other challenge facing writer Marc Burt, the cast and crew of the one-off docudrama is how to fashion a convincing retelling of one of the most high profile celebrity scandals in the UK of recent times.
Welshman Huw Edwards was one of the most recognisable faces in British broadcasting until his downfall in July 2023.
Just months before, BBC News' main anchorman sombrely announced the death of Queen Elizabeth II to the nation in September 2022.
Within a year, his career collapsed when The Sun newspaper revealed an unnamed, high profile BBC presenter had paid a young man from the age of 17 a total of £35,000 for a series of 'sordid images'.
While the daily newspaper did not name him, Edwards was eventually outed by his own wife Vicki after days of fevered speculation on social media about who the celebrity was.
In a public statement, she claimed he had suffered a major mental breakdown, having previously received treatment for depression.
In July 2024, Edwards pleaded guilty in Westminster Magistrates Court to three counts of making indecent images of children (downloading them from emails and social media).
It later emerged the disgraced broadcaster received 377 sexual images via WhatsApp - 41 of them involving children - from another individual, Alex Williams from Merthyr Tydfil who was also convicted for his role.
They included seven Category A images - the most serious classification.
Two of them included a child aged between seven and nine.
Edwards also had 12 Category B images - which do not involve penetrative sexual activity - and 22 in Category C, featuring children aged between 12 and 15.
In September 2024, he received a six month prison sentence, suspended for two years, and was ordered to attend a sex offenders' treatment programme
He was also ordered to pay £3,218 in costs and a victim surcharge and apologised to the court and those he had hurt through his defence barrister.
Burt and director Michael Samuels have chosen to tell the story of Edwards' downfall from the perspective of the young man at the centre of The Sun's revelations whose story eventually led to the discovery of Edwards' cache of paedophilic images.
Based on extensive interviews with the unnamed young man who is called Ryan for the purposes of the docudrama and also his family, it's a disturbing and deeply uncomfortable watch.
Osian Morgan plays Ryan as a starstruck and easily manipulated youth introduced to Martin Clunes' Huw Edwards by Joseph Loanes' Alex Williams.
From the off, the power dynamic is skewed very much in the celebrity's favour as he arrogantly bosses and bullies the young man into doing what he wants.
If Morgan portrays the victim as a naive young man, Clunes exudes pomposity and deviousness as Edwards.
It's a brave performance from a beloved comedy actor who makes a pretty good stab at transforming himself physically and vocally as the disgraced news anchor.
There's also not a shred of sympathy for the news man.
Morgan shares the screen with Sian Reese Williams who impresses as Carys Davies, his concerned mum who wonders how he is acquiring the money to buy loads of trainers.
Carys becomes alarmed by Ryan's drug taking and is devastated to learn what's been going on.
Jason Hughes brings a bullishness to the role of the victim's stepfather Mick Granger while Aisha-May Hunte plays Ryan's best friend Sasha who is stunned to learn who he has been communicating with and is keen to change the power dynamic.
Chanel Creswell also catches the eye as Scarlet Howes as The Sun journalist who helps bring the story to light and she gels well with Clare Calbraith as the newspaper's editor Victoria Newton and Ben Bishop as a news editor, Ben O'Driscoll.
Lorraine Burroughs also impresses as Edwards' producer who for the purposes of the drama is called Angelica Masters, while Loane dies a decent job handling the other uncomfortable role of Alex Williams.
While Samuels elicits strong performances from his cast, Burt's docudrama is nevertheless an unpleasant watch as it details a series of awkward interactions over social media between the TV star and the young victim of his manipulation.
It is, of course, meant to be uncomfortable.
How could it credibly be anything else?
But that fact doesn't make it any easier to watch.
And while there's no scene chewing dialogue or any note, the TV film is a gruelling, stomach churning watch that is impressively victim focused.
As an addition to Channel 5's less than glittering stable of TV dramas, 'Power: The Downfall of Huw Edwards' is a commendable step up.
The fact that Edwards has publicly rebuked it has probably done Burt's docudrama no harm.
His docudrama also serves as a grim reminder of how social media, with its easy access to pornography, has put young people into the firing line of those eager to manipulate them.
But it also begs the question: what are we prepared to do about it?
('Power: The Downfall of Huw Edwards' was broadcast on Channel 5 on March 24, 2026)
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