Game of Thrones actor Will Tudor to star in ITV's Torvill and Dean drama

Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean's rise to Olympic figure skating glory is to be retold in a one-off ITV drama.

Will Tudor, from Game of Thrones and Humans, will play Dean, while Ackley Bridge's Poppy Lee Friar plays Torvill.

The two-hour drama will show the duo's early years leading up to their gold medal in the 1984 Winter Olympics.

"We feel very honoured that ITV have commissioned this film based on what was a very significant period in each of our lives," Torvill and Dean said.

The pair, who are both from Nottingham, claimed Olympic glory in Sarajevo with their famous performance to Ravel's Bolero.

According to ITV, the drama will tell of "the creative impetus that finally drove them to become ice dancing royalty".

It will also tell of their "humble beginnings", their clash of temperaments and how they "together tried to establish a new language for ice dance".

Anita Dobson, Stephen Tompkinson and Jaime Winstone will also appear in the drama, to be written by William Ivory.

Ivory, whose credits include 2010 film Made in Dagenham, said Torvill and Dean were "real artists... engaging in deeply felt creative and emotional battles".

The writer spent many hours talking to his subjects, who said they had "thoroughly enjoyed... sharing experiences of our passion for skating, the life-long friendship that came through our sport and everything that it took to achieve our eventual goal of becoming Olympic champions".

Gillies MacKinnon, whose films include Hideous Kinky and last year's Whisky Galore remake, will direct the drama, which will begin filming later this month.

Torvill and Dean officially retired in 1998 and now act as coaches on ITV's Dancing On Ice.

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