The Duke: The incredible true story behind Jim Broadbent and Helen Mirren's new drama

Virgin Radio

24 Feb 2022, 11:53

Jim Broadbent is back on the big screen in comedy-drama The Duke, and stars alongside the likes of Helen Mirren, Fionn Whitehead and Matthew Goode.

There’s a moving true story behind the film, and it all revolves around an art robbery, and one man’s mission to change the world.

In 1961, 60-year-old Geordie taxi driver and script writer Kempton Bunton, played by Jim Broadbent, was furious at the treatment of elderly citizens, and decided to take matters into his own hands. 

Having spent years trying to raise awareness for the treatment of older people and the working class, and even serving time in prison for not paying the BBC licence fee, the story goes that Kempton concocted a plan to get him and his cause noticed. 

At the time, the National Gallery announced that the government paid £140,000 to keep Francisco's Goya’s portrait of the Duke of Wellington from being exported to America. 

After furiously watching at home, Kempton was outraged by how much money the government was willing to spend on a painting, (particularly one of an aristocrat, who opposed universal suffrage) when it could have been spent on providing free television to thousands of OAPs. 

The story depicted in the film suggests that after a ‘Free TV for the OAP’ protest outside his main Post Office goes basically unnoticed, Kempton hatched a plan to go to London to appeal directly to Parliament. 

He then got turned away from the House of Commons by police and feels exacerbated by his inability to get anyone of power to listen.

Undeterred by being ignored, Kempton made his way to the National Gallery, found a way to enter the building in the dead of night and lifted the painting straight from its easel - but this was far from the truth.

What is true though is that it marked the first and only theft in the National Gallery’s history, and left the investigators at Scotland Yard completely stumped. 

The police originally believed the robbery was by an expert art thief, or even gangsters, given the ease in which it was able to be stolen.

After the theft, Kempton started to send out ransom notes to the press, but none of them were taken seriously. In one of the notes, he said the left was ‘an attempt to pick the pockets of those who love art more than charity’. 

Eventually, after an offer by a newspaper to put the painting on public display for charity, Kempton decided the risk of keeping the painting outweighed the reward. 

In the film, Kempton returned the painting to the gallery before confessing to his crime, but the true story is that he left the art at the left-luggage office at Birmingham New Street station, but left details on where to find it with a local newspaper. He then handed himself in to the police only six weeks later. 

He was taken to the Old Bailey for his trial but was only found guilty of one count - stealing the frame, which he never returned. 

As he never kept the painting, he couldn't be found guilty of stealing it, and only spent three months in jail before being freed. 

All was still not as it seemed through, as eight years after the crime happened, Kempton’s son John, called Jackie in the film and played by Fionn Whitehead, revealed he was the actual culprit of the crime. 

Inspired by his son's deviance, Kempton did use the stolen painting to further his cause, but took the fall for his son's crime.

None of the actual true story of what happened became public knowledge until 2012, almost fifty years after it took place. 

Despite confessing, the Director of Public prosecutions told the police they didn’t have enough evidence to prosecute John, and they would’ve had to prosecute Kempton for perjury. 

Kempton died in 1976 and never had the full story told in his lifetime. Despite this, his grandson Chris decided his grandfather's story should be told, and the record put straight. 

This incredible story will be ready to watch on the big screen in The Duke, which opens in cinemas on Friday 25th February.