Casting Woman of the Hour

How would you cast the main characters in WOMAN OF THE HOUR as a TV series?  Here are my suggestions. 

Woman of the Hour is set in a London TV station that broadcasts a live morning show. The main character is Liz Lyon and she is a respected TV producer, a stressed out executive and a guilty single mother. She is a strong woman who spends her life trying to manage the many monster egos at the TV station. When she gets home she has to cope with a stroppy teenage daughter. She is 41 and I described her thus:

My hair is black and I’ve worn it in a short bob, without a fringe, for years. A bob is nice and low maintenance and I pay Ellen in make-up a small fee to cut it for me every two months. I peered in the mirror and saw a few more grey hairs at the parting. 

Now I think Suranne Jones would be perfect as Liz as she has the right mix of strength and contained emotion. Liz is controlled at work and emotional at home and Suranne Jones would do this very well.

The star presenter at the TV station is Fizzy Wentworth and I described her like this: 

Fizzy is a woman who sets great store by how people look. She is thirty-eight but she looks younger. She is pretty rather than beautiful, with her strawberry-blonde hair and pointed chin, more of a girl-next-door type who viewers can relate to, rather than drop-dead gorgeous.  

I think Natalie Dormer would work brilliantly as Fizzy. She has the pointed chin and the face a camera loves. She is perhaps a little too beautiful to be Fizzy but hey I can live with that.

Liz’s boss is Julius Jones and he is clever, ruthless and can be a bully at times. 

Julius entered the room and there was a palpable change in the atmosphere. No one says anything until they’ve had an indication of which way he is going to jump. Sometimes you can tell what his mood is going to be simply by the way he sits down and spreads his arms on the table. Julius is handsome, though in a rather bland way. He looks clean-cut and preppy but he is unpredictable, a chameleon, and his face can change from pleasant to menacing in a moment. Even his name is a sham. He was born and raised Nigel Jones but changed his name to Julius Jones when he started working in television. 

My choice to play Julius Jones is Dominic West as he’s got the right amount of suppressed power under an outwardly attractive exterior.

Who would you choose?

Woman of the Hour is published by Head of Zeus.