The House of Saddam

Dictators, especially fallen dictators, make excellent subjects for films and TV.

Saddam Hussein is no exception, the BBC are planning to make a TV drama about his rise and fall.

The title of the drama is expected to be "House of Saddam", and will focus on how Saddam and his entourage seized power and held on to it for so long.

It will begin with his rise to power in Iraq in the late 70's and follow the story through until his capture, hiding in a hole in the ground, after the overthrow of his regime in December 2003.

The drama will tell Saddam's story from the perspective of Saddam's inner circle, rather than a western perspective.

The writer, Alex Holmes, seems from his quotes to be rather enamoured of Saddam:

"It's more to do with the fall and why he failed. He had a vision, which was to create a great Arab nation and write himself into the history books as a great leader who would be remembered in hundreds of years time.

But his own flaws and the tactics these failings forced him to rely on meant he never came near to achieving this vision, and instead dragged his country into misery and pain.

I want to tell the story from the perspective of the people inside his inner circle and understand how they saw the world and why they did what they did."

Adding:

"We are trying to understand their world and reassure them that we want to tell the story from their perspective - from the inside out, not a western viewpoint."

The four part drama is expected to be aired in 2006.