Canoe con man John Darwin is narcissist who was ‘shocked’ when sons grieved over his fake death, says actor Eddie Marsan

WHEN John Darwin faked his own death in a canoeing accident for the £250,000 life insurance payout, he thought he had executed a brilliant plan.

His con, however, was exposed when a photo of him and wife Anne enjoying the Panama sunshine emerged five years later.

Despite that, Eddie Marsan, who plays John in ITV’s big Easter drama The Thief, His Wife And The Canoe, believes he will always think of himself as genius

Eddie, 53, said: “He had delusions of grandeur. In a narcissistic way, he thought he was smarter than everyone else. That’s why he had the cojones to try this. He thought he could outsmart everyone else.

“He saw other people as merely two-dimensional and thought he was the only three-dimensional person in the world. But he underestimated people’s ability to see through him

“That form of toxic masculinity is quite common nowadays. These kinds of men underestimate everyone else and think they’re not as clever as they are.”

In 2002, former teacher and prison officer John and Anne, a doctor’s receptionist, were crippled by debt for a string of bedsit houses they rented out

So John, then 57, hatched a plan to defraud his insurers, pay off his creditors and start a new life.

It meant that Anne had to let their sons, Mark and Anthony, believe their father had died off the coast of their home in Teesside.

The drama, which starts on Easter Sunday, shows how she agonised over the cruel decision — but he had no qualms.

Eddie said: “Before he faked his own death, he said, ‘My sons will get over it in a few weeks’.

“He had a very difficult relationship with his own dad. He wasn’t that emotionally attached to his father, so he didn’t realise his sons would be that attached to him.

“Narcissists think everyone is like them. John lacked empathy. When he actually listened to his sons’ grief, he was shocked by it.”

He could hear their grief because for several years he hid in a house next door to the family home until enough time had passed for Anne to get the payout from the insurers.

The new drama suggests Anne went along with the scheme because she was so scared of him leaving her.

At one point he terrifies her by threatening to commit suicide as a way of getting the money.

Further down the line he reminds her that she might ruin the lives of their sons if she backs out of the plot.

The mini-series shows how after years of living in fear of being caught in the UK, he suggests they start a new life abroad.

In 2006, the couple travelled to Panama to house hunt. But when visa laws there changed, John realised his fake ID would not hold up.

So in 2007 he decided to walk into a London police station claiming amnesia.

But when a picture the couple took in Panama emerged, his lie was rumbled.

John was sentence to six years and three months in jail, while Anne’s sentence was three months longer as her role in the con was deemed more substantial.

Narcissists think everyone is like them. John lacked empathy. When he actually listened to his sons’ grief, he was shocked by it.

Eddie Marsan

The drama suggests that Anne — who has rebuilt a relationship with her sons — was coerced by overbearing John.

Anthony and Mark have not spoken to their father since he was released and moved to the Philippines, where he remarried.

Eddie believes the husband and wife’s complicated relationship is at the heart of the story, which manages to find dark humour in the saga.

He said: “The dynamic between them is fascinating. They are co-dependent. They’re both so dysfunctional, but on the surface you don’t realise it.

“In private, however, you see that he is a fantasist and she just wants to be loved by him. I can see myself in him. When you approach a character, you always think, ‘What is he doing and can I see myself in that?’. I always can.

“I can identify with John’s hubris. As an actor, I go from thinking I’m going to win an Oscar one week to thinking I’m going to be driving a cab the next.

“But I think people may come away with a bit of empathy for Anne, but less so for John. Especially during lockdown, lots of us have faced financial difficulty in circumstances we can’t control.

“What this story does is take that to an extreme. Lots of us face financial difficulties, but we don’t come up with such extraordinary solutions.”

Monica Dolan, 53, who plays Anne, says the story also tells us about the dangers of debt and how people can react to it.

She said: “It was a series of events that is incredibly bizarre, and yet if you follow what they were trying to do, every individual event makes sense.

“The drama says something wider as well. No one is denying they were criminals, but at the same time banks were selling mortgages they shouldn’t have been selling to that couple.”

In the drama, Anne, who was 56 at the time, is initially seen suggesting practical measures to pay off the tens of thousands of pounds of debt they had accumulated.

It was a series of events that is incredibly bizarre, and yet if you follow what they were trying to do, every individual event makes sense.

Monica Dolan

John is portrayed as a lavish spender who is struggling to maintain their string of rental properties.

Monica said: “You just have to look at the houses that John got massive mortgages for to see that he must have been a fantasist.

“Dealing with a fantasist on a day-to-day basis must take all sorts of psychological gymnastics.”

She is not sure how much blame should be heaped on Anne, who did not want to be a part of the production — and nor neither did John or his two sons, though one of them did visit the set in disguise.

Monica said: “It’s very difficult to tell how much she was in thrall to him. She did a lot of things independently of him, but her argument was that she could always hear him in her head coercing her. At the time, the jury were not convinced by her argument.

“It was a very difficult time for her. John treated her very badly. He had an affair as soon as they got married.

“But she stayed with him. One thing that struck me was when the prosecution in court asked, ‘What were you scared would happen if you did ring the police?’“

She replied, ‘I was frightened he might leave me’.”

For Monica, the experience was an eye-opener, but for Eddie, playing dark characters is a familiar sensation.

Over the last 22 years he has portrayed gangsters, villains, Nazis and warmongers.

He said: “I always play characters who are psychologically deluded, narcissistic or abusive. It used to be that they were on the periphery of stories. Society was the norm, and they were outside it.

“But recently I’ve been playing these characters and they are among us now. The idea of a middle-aged man suffering from self-delusion and narcissism is quite prominent.

“I don’t know why they keep asking me to play these roles. Producers are obviously saying, ‘We want a middle-aged bloke having a midlife crisis with a healthy dose of narcissism. Let’s get Eddie Marsan’.

“I don’t know if I’d like to meet him. He’s probably hacked off that it’s not Brad Pitt playing him. When he heard it was me, he probably thought, ‘Great. Thanks a lot!’.”

• The Thief, His Wife And The Canoe runs for four consecutive nights from Easter Sunday on ITV.