Actor Wants Clegg's Verdict On TV Show Role

The actor who plays Nick Clegg in a new political drama has appealed to the Deputy Prime Minister to give his verdict on the performance.

With the General Election just weeks away, Coalition charts Clegg's rise in popularity ahead of the 2010 poll and the subsequent formation of a government by the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats.

Award-winning actor Bertie Carvel, who plays the Lib Dem leader, told Sky News' Entertainment Week how he would be "interested to know" what the politicians thought of the cast's interpretation as they strove to put politics aside and get into "the mind" of the politicians and what they were feeling at the time.

"Our job is to try to connect on a human level... there is no political agenda in playing the character, you are just using your imagination to try and understand what it might feel like and hopefully what people get is a sense of the human being."

Carvel, who won an Olivier award for his role as Miss Trunchbull in Matilda, describes the 90-minute drama as being "a few degrees to one side of reality" but the facts of the story are very real.

"It's a thriller absolutely based on real events, there's nothing made up here. You don't need to go to House Of Cards to find thrilling political drama. It happened."

As the electorate prepares to cast its vote, Carvel hopes Coalition gives some depth to the leaders in government and voters will become engaged in the political conversation.

"People have a very dim view often of politicians when, in fact, by and large, they are motivated by doing what they believe to be right.

"You might think what they are doing is terribly wrong and that is why we have the amazing functional democracy.

"People are trying to do some good for what they believe in, I think that's terribly exciting. I think people ought be engaged in it."

Channel 4's Coalition also stars Iain Grieve as David Cameron and Mark Dexter as Gordon Brown.