Jeffrey Archer of Archer's character at the end of each performance. The perjury trial began on 30 May 2001, a month after Monica Coghlan's death in a road traffic accident. Ted Francis claimed that Archer had asked him to provide a false alibi for the night Archer was alleged to have been with Monica Coghlan. Angela Peppiatt, Archer's former personal assistant, also claimed Archer had fabricated an alibi in the 1987 trial. Peppiatt had kept a diary of Archer's movements, which contradicted evidence given during the 1987 trial. Andrina Colquhoun, Archer's former mistress, confirmed that they had been having an affair in
Jeffrey Archer Strauss and Sam Neill. The following year, Granada TV screened a 10-part adaptation of another Archer bestseller, "First Among Equals", which told the story of four men and their quest to become Prime Minister. In the U.S. edition of the novel, the character of Andrew Fraser was eliminated, reducing the number of protagonists to three. As well as novels and short stories, Archer has also written three stage plays. The first, "Beyond Reasonable Doubt", opened in 1987 and ran at the Queen's Theatre in London's West End for over a year. However, Archer's next play, "Exclusive", was not well received