If I told you that production is about to wrap on a new series exploring the history and future of the Liberal Party I’m guessing you may be perhaps at most mildly interested.

After all, documentary-style examinations of the party founded by the late Sir Robert Menzies almost 80 years ago are not uncommon.

But today I can reveal exclusively to readers of The Bug that the one now being edited and prepared for broadcast on the ABC is radically different.

For starters it stars two Liberal Party leaders – the current Opposition Leader Peter Dutton and its most successful prime minister of recent times, John Howard. (main picture)

Second, it’s not a documentary at all but a dramatised history of the party and is based loosely on a British TV crime series that ran for three seasons between 2013 and 2017.

Like its UK original, Broadchurch will be an initial eight-episode series and the ABC hopes further series will follow if viewer reaction is positive.

In it Peter Dutton takes the role of Detective Inspector Alec Hardy, played in the UK version by David Tennant.

John Howard has agreed to frock up to play Hardy’s sidekick, Detective Sergeant Ellie Miller (main picture).

Fans of the original series will know that Miller was played by Oscar winner Olivia Coleman.

I can’t say too much, but the central plot is built around the efforts of the two coppers to find out who killed the Liberal Party and how and when, if ever, they will be brought to justice.

Stay tuned, because having had exclusive access to a preview of snippets of the new series I can assure readers that it really packs a punch.