A Luke Evans drama that starts with a toast and ends in blood
The Party is a British five-part drama for ITV about working-class journalist Martin Gilmour and privileged politician Ben Fitzmaurice, whose lifelong friendship explodes during an opulent birthday celebration that drags buried secrets into the spotlight and triggers a police investigation.
The key takeaway from this first look is that The Party ITV is not content to be another glossy thriller; it wants to be a bruising emotional autopsy of devotion and class. The series casts Luke Evans as Martin, a man whose identity has been welded to his wealthy friend since they met at boarding school, and Tom Cullen actor as Ben, the golden-boy MP whose ambitions collide with the past. ITV is already calling it “a gripping exploration of identity, privilege and devotion” and “a tender ode to anyone who has fought to live authentically”, signalling a show that aims for both suspense and emotional precision rather than cheap shocks.
A friendship built on class debt and unspeakable loyalty
If the teaser and images prove anything, it is that The Party understands that the most dangerous relationships are often the ones that feel like rescue stories. Based on Elizabeth Day’s 2017 novel, the drama follows Martin from the moment he wins a scholarship to an elite boarding school and is absorbed into the Fitzmaurice clan, who offer him the sense of home he has craved. This isn’t a meet-cute; it is the start of a lifelong imbalance.
Over five episodes, the British five-part drama hops between school, university and London party years, building a picture of a bond that is both intimate and corrosive. Martin’s “unflinching” loyalty to Ben’s family looks less like gratitude and more like a kind of emotional debt that cannot be repaid, and that’s exactly where the tension lies. The hook here is not who dies at the party, but how much of himself Martin has already sacrificed long before the first glass is raised.
A night of political ambition, media fear and splintering identities
The titular party is not a neutral social event; it is a career launch, a confession booth and a crime scene all at once. Years after their school days, Martin attends Ben’s lavish 40th birthday, timed perfectly with Ben’s plan to announce a run for his party’s leadership. Martin, now a journalist, sees the looming media spotlight as a threat, not an opportunity, because Ben’s campaign could drag their shared past into public view.
The Party’s structure—cutting between the glossy celebration and the police search that follows—suggests a thriller that trusts audiences to piece together motive and consequence. First-look images of Luke Evans’s immaculate white shirt splattered with blood hint that the show is less “whodunnit” than “why on earth did it come to this?” In a landscape crowded with crime series, that focus on identity and self-invention feels far more interesting than another puzzle-box plot.
Why The Party could be Luke Evans’s most emotionally demanding role yet
This Luke Evans drama looks primed to use his charisma against the audience, asking us to side with a man whose motives may be as murky as the secrets he is protecting. Playing Martin Gilmour demands a tightrope between vulnerability and calculation: he is the outsider who was welcomed in, but also the narrator shaping which parts of that story we see. Evans has said that “from the moment I read Elizabeth Day’s novel, I knew it had the makings of something special for television”, a rare case of an actor sounding like they know the material will expose their character as much as their range.
Opposite him, Tom Cullen actor brings a different kind of complexity to Ben Fitzmaurice: the polished public figure whose private life is held together by other people’s silence. Their dynamic, more than the eventual crime, is the show’s real cliffhanger. If The Party works, it will be because Evans and Cullen convince us that this friendship has always been equal parts love story, power struggle and slow-motion disaster.
A gripping and tender drama worth putting on your autumn watchlist
Beyond its leads, The Party assembles a supporting cast that signals serious intent: Joanna Scanlan as Martin’s single mother Sylvia, Lindsay Duncan and Douglas Hodge as Ben’s aristocratic parents, and Lydia Leonard as his wife Serena. With Sarah Solemani adapting and running the show, the series seems determined to balance slow-burn character work with the propulsion of a thriller.
Calling The Party a “gripping” thriller undersells its promise; the more accurate pitch is a tender but unsparing look at how class, loyalty and self-deception can bind two people together long after the friendship stops being safe. The Party ITV will air this autumn on ITV1, STV, ITVX and STV Player, and from this first look it already feels less like background viewing and more like the kind of drama that will have viewers arguing over who was in the right long after the credits roll.
