Murder on page one

Television series
German title	Murder on page one
Original title	State of Play
Country of production	Great Britain
original language	English
year	2003
length	52 minutes
Episodes	6 in 1 season
genre	thriller
idea	Paul Abbott
production	Hilary Bevan Jones
music	Nicholas Hooper
First broadcast	May 18, 2003 (UK) on BBC One
German-language ; first broadcast	January 5th, 2008 on ARTE
occupation
	John Simm : Cal McAffrey; David Morrissey : Stephen Collins; Kelly Macdonald : Della Smith; Bill Nighy : Cameron Foster; Amelia Bullmore : Helen Preger; Benedict Wong : Pete Cheng; Philip Glenister : DCI William Bell; Polly Walker : Anne Collins; James McAvoy : Dan Foster; Marc Warren : Dominic Foy;
synchronization

State of Play (Original title: State of Play ) is an award-winning British miniseries of the BBC in 2003. It was directed by David Yates . The series was first broadcast in Germany in 2008 on ARTE .

Complete plot

Stephen Collins from Manchester , member of the British House of Commons , married with two children, has had a steep career in politics and is considered a candidate for higher things. His assistant Sonia Baker dies under mysterious circumstances. At the same time, a colored teenager dies, presumably a drug trafficking settlement . Reporter Cal McAffrey, an old friend of Collins, sniffs a story. The cynical editor-in-chief Foster provides him with an experienced team of journalists .

It quickly emerges that Collins had an affair with Sonia. His ailing marriage to Anne is in jeopardy. She travels to London and relieves her husband, but in turn begins an affair with Cal. Meanwhile, the series of murders continues: the teenager's killer tries to eliminate the only witness to the murder, but instead catches a police officer. The trail leads to oil lobbyists : Collins and his team were on the verge of reaching extensive environmental protection agreements. Apparently, however, Sonia acted as an informant for the oil industry and sent her important information. Dominic Foy seems to play a key role, on whose heels the reporter team is now attached.

The teenager's killer is caught when he tries to take out Cal, to whom he leaked important documents. He dies without giving any indication of his employer. Soon after, Foy reveals information about the agreement between Sonia and the lobby company, and the team is finally back on track. Collins, meanwhile, takes a flight forward after learning that party leaders knew about Sonia's activities. He refuses an impending political rise and instead works with Cal on an investigative story about the events, despite knowing about his affair with his wife.

But then, in the last part, the story clears up, in a direction completely unexpected by the journalists: It was not the oil lobby that was to blame for the death of Sonia and the other victims, but Collins himself. He had a former soldier, the killer , set to monitor them. According to Collins, however, he began to act on his own out of admiration for him. In the end, the lead the newspaper can come up with is not the political story it was hoping for, but a sex-and-crime story about a stumbled MP.

Cast and dubbing

The German synchronization was established in 2008 after a dialogue book and the dialogue director of Frank Wesel by the synchronous company TaunusFilm GmbH Synchron AG in Berlin .

actor	figure	Main role episode	Supporting role episode	Voice actor
David Morrissey	Stephen Collins	1-6		Stefan Gossler
John Simm	Cal McCaffrey	1-6		Gerrit Schmidt-Foss
Kelly Macdonald	Della Smith	1-6		Manja Doering
Polly Walker	Anne Collins	1-6		Sabine Falkenberg
Bill Nighy	Cameron Foster	1-6		Bodo Wolf
Philip Glenister	DCI William Bell	1-6		Lutz Schnell
James McAvoy	Dan Foster	2-6		Nico Mamone
Marc Warren	Dominic Foy	2-6	1	Viktor Neumann
Amelia Bullmore	Helen Preger		1-6	Heath Domanowski
James Laurenson	George Fergus		1, 3-5	Jochen Schröder
Michael Feast	Andrew Wilson		1-5	K. Dieter Klebsch
Rebekah Staton	Liz		1-6	Christin Marquitan
Benedict Wong	Pete Cheng		1-6	Frank Schröder
Johann Myers	Sonny Stagg		1-3, 5-6	Jan-David Rönfeldt
Geraldine James	Yvonne Shaps		5-6	Kerstin Sanders-Dornseif
Maureen Hibbert	Olicia Stagg		1-3, 5	Katarina Tomaschewsky
Deborah Findlay	Greer Thornton		1, 3-5	Christin Marquitan
Christopher Simpson	Adam Greene		1, 3, 5-6	Karlo Hackenberger
Tom Burke	Syd		3-6	Ozan Unal
Shauna Macdonald	Sonia Baker		3-4, 6	Angela Ringer
Sean Gilder	DS 'Chewy' Cheweski		3, 5-6	Dieter Memel
Stuart Goodwin	Robert Bingham		1-3	Marcus Off
Madeleine Potter	Professor Tate		1-2	Viola Sauer
Natasha Wightman	Sheena Gough		3-4	Victoria Storm

background

Screenwriter Paul Abbott said of the making of the book that he wrote the story without ever stepping into a newspaper office . Journalists had told him, however, that he had exactly met the atmosphere of a newsroom in which a large part of the series takes place. Especially in the editorial office, but also in the rest of the venues, the creators of the series attached great importance to integrating background events into the film. For example, the extras in the background of the newsroom were assigned their own departments and tasks, which they should pursue independently of the main events in front of the camera in order to obtain as realistic as possible recordings.

Initially, after the success of the series, a second season with another case of the journalist team was planned, but this did not materialize. Instead, there was an American remake for the cinema, in which Ben Affleck and Russell Crowe played the leading roles. The Washington D. C. set film was released in April 2009 under the title State of Play .