Emma Thompson turns Queen of the nightie

Intruder Michael Fagan sneaked into the palace and managed to find his way into her bedroom, sitting on her bed and chatting for ten minutes.

The incident has been adapted for a film called Walking the Dogs, with Eddie Marsan as Fagan, to be screened by Sky Arts in the spring.

Russell Tovey plays a footman who had been walking the royal corgis instead of guarding the bedroom in the film, part of a new series of comedies and dramas called Playhouse Presents.

Fagan, who was 31 at the time, was initially charged with the theft of some wine but the charges were later dropped and he went on to be detained for several months in a psychiatric hospital.

His encounter with the Queen was actually his second visit to the royal household, after previously scaling a drainpipe and scouting round the corridors before leaving.

The Queen famously is said to have engaged Fagan – who was bleeding after he broke an ashtray – in conversation until help arrived. But in a recent interview with the Independent on Sunday, he said she ran out to raise the alarm and a footman arrived and took him for a drink in the Queen’s pantry.

“It was a double bed but a single room, definitely – she was sleeping in there on her own,” he said, adding: “Her nightie was one of those Liberty prints and it was down to her knees.”

Meanwhile, Sir Tom Jones is to make his acting debut in a new TV drama in the Playhouse Presents series, starring alongside Alison Steadman and Brenda Blethyn in the film King of the Teds, also being shown on Sky Arts in the spring.