THE GOLD: CASTING REVEALED FOR NEW BBC DRAMA
If you missed it - April 2022
The BBC and Paramount+ have announced an all-star cast for new drama, The Gold, which has recently started filming.
Hugh Bonneville will star alongside Jack Lowden, Dominic Cooper, Charlotte Spencer, Tom Cullen, Emun Elliott, Sean Harris, Ellora Torchia and Stefanie Martini in the gripping new real-life drama for BBC One and iPlayer.
The Gold is written by Neil Forsyth (Guilt, Eric, Ernie & Me) and directed by Oscar-winning Aneil Karia (The Long Goodbye) along with Lawrence Gough (The Last Bus, Snatch, Misfits).
On the 26 November 1983, six armed men broke into the Brink’s-Mat security depot near London’s Heathrow Airport, and inadvertently stumbled across gold bullion worth £26m.
What started as 'a typical Old Kent Road armed robbery' according to detectives at the time, became a seminal event in British criminal history, remarkable not only for the scale of the theft, at the time the biggest in world history, but for its wider legacy.
The disposal of the bullion caused the birth of large-scale international money laundering, provided the dirty money that helped fuel the London Docklands property boom, united blue and white collar criminals and left controversy and murder in its wake.
Inspired by extensive research and interviews with some of those involved in the events, The Gold is a pulsating dramatization which takes a journey into a 1980s world awash with cheap money and loosened morals to tell this extraordinary and epic story for the first time in its entirety.
Tommy Bulfin, BBC Commissioning Editor, says: “The fact that we have assembled such a talented and exciting ensemble cast is testament to Neil’s incisive interrogation of one of the most infamous robberies in British history and the remarkable events which came in its wake...
"And to have the brilliant Aneil Karia join fresh from his Oscar win is the icing on the cake. The BBC One audience are in for a real treat when this hits the screen.”
Ben Farrell, Executive Producer, says: “Tannadice Pictures are excited to be working on their debut drama with such an incredible ensemble cast alongside the BBC and Paramount+ to tell, for the first time, the full, immersive, thrilling story of the Brink’s-Mat gold crime.”
Kate Laffey, Co-Managing Director of VIS, says: “The Gold is a captivating story of one of the most remarkable events in British Criminal history, and we look forward to bringing this story to life for Paramount+ and BBC audiences around the world.”
The Gold (6x60’) was commissioned by Piers Wenger, Director of BBC Drama and Charlotte Moore, Chief Content Officer, and written by Neil Forsyth (Guilt, Eric, Ernie & Me).