Weston to star in TV drama on Salisbury novichok poisonings
The Salisbury Poisonings is showing on BBC One on Sunday, Monday and Tuesday. - Credit: Archant
A drama based on the Novichok poisonings in Salisbury starts this weekend, featuring scenes from across Weston and North Somerset.
The three-part series, which is showing on BBC One from Sunday to Tuesday, was filmed at a number of locations in North Somerset in November and December last year.
Former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia were targeted with the nerve agent in March 2018.
The Salisbury Poisonings focuses on the heroism shown by the local community after it became the site of a national emergency.
Filming took place on Weston Beach – which doubles as Bournemouth Beach in the programme – while Castlewood in Clevedon was used for the Criminal Investigation Department offices.
Viewers will also recognise Brookfield Walk in Clevedon and Azalea Road in Wick St Lawrence, while location units were set up at Worle Parkway and Salthouse Fields car parks.
Writers Adam Patterson and Declan Lawn interviewed members of the community who were affected by the attack, including the family of Dawn Sturgess who died after being exposed to high levels of the nerve agent.
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They also spoke to Charlie Rowley, Dawn’s boyfriend, who almost died from his own exposure to Novichok, and detective sergeant Nick Bailey, who was contaminated at the Skripals’ home and ended up fighting for his life.
The duo said they spent many hours researching people’s accounts of what happened and uncovered multiple stories of courage and of individuals who put themselves at great risk to help others.
Adam and Declan said: “The Salisbury Poisonings is not always an easy watch. It deals with real trauma, experienced by real people, not very long ago.
“So why show it now? Because it is a story of people coming together in remarkable ways, finding strength in family and community.
“It’s a story that reflects the internal reality of an emergency public health response, with all of its critical decisions.
“But perhaps most of all, because it reflects a kind of heroism that we have all come to recognise recently.
“A heroism that is quiet – ordinary even – and that is wrapped up in a simple sense of civic duty that we had wrongly assumed was on the wane, but that really had only been lying dormant. An everyday kind of heroism that nonetheless changes the world.”
The Salisbury Poisonings airs on BBC One on Sunday, Monday and Tuesday night at 9pm.
