SAS Rogue Heroes | Preview (BBC One)

SAS Rogue Heroes, the major new drama series from Steven Knight, will launch at 9pm on Sunday 30 October on BBC One, with all episodes then available on BBC iPlayer

Based on the best-selling book of the same name by Ben Macintyre, the six-part series stars Connor Swindells, Jack O'Connell, Alfie Allen, Sofia Boutella, and Dominic West, in a dramatised account of how the SAS was formed under extraordinary circumstances in the darkest days of World War Two.

Rich with action and set-pieces, SAS Rogue Heroes is the exhilarating story of renegade men taking monumental risks in extraordinary circumstances.

Cairo, 1941. David Stirling (Connor Swindells) - an eccentric young officer, hospitalised after a training exercise went wrong - is bored. Convinced that traditional commando units don’t work, he creates a radical plan that flies in the face of all accepted rules of modern warfare.

He fights for permission to recruit the toughest, boldest and brightest soldiers for a small undercover unit that will create mayhem behind enemy lines. More rebels than soldiers, Stirling’s team are every bit as complicated, flawed and reckless as they are astonishingly brave and heroic.

Episode 1: Told to stand down after yet another failed operation, Lieutenant David Stirling, an eccentric young officer serving with 8 Commando, finds himself increasingly frustrated with the military authorities and their handling of current strategy. It’s a frustration also shared by Lt John ‘Jock’ Lewes, who is fighting under heavy bombardment in the besieged city of Tobruk, and Lt Robert Blair ‘Paddy’ Mayne, currently ‘detained’ in a military prison. But Lewes has an idea he’s keen to discuss – and it involves parachutes…

SAS Rogue Heroes begins Sunday 30th October on BBC One.