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New Statesman
22-05-2025
- Entertainment
- New Statesman
The Bombing of Pan Am 103 is poignant and fascinating
Photo by BBC/World Productions It is a strange thing, to be moved by luggage; to be brought almost to tears by the sight of an unwieldy suitcase or a bulging holdall. But in The Bombing of Pan Am 103, the BBC's new drama about the Lockerbie air disaster, baggage does a lot of work, emotional and otherwise. Obviously, in the first instance it's a metaphor for lives cut brutally short at 31,000 feet. The crime scene on the ground below covered some 850 square miles, a radiating map of horror comprising bodies, fuselage and intimate possessions. Ten thousand pieces of evidence would eventually be gathered by investigators, among them the charred fragments of the suitcase that had contained the bomb that brought the plane down. Perhaps, though, there's more to it than this. So many were killed that night: 243 passengers and 16 crew; 11 souls in the small Scottish town of Lockerbie. How might a television series deal with such a number? In the first episode, we see people boarding the plane. They're excited. It's Christmas, and they're on their way to celebrate with those they love. But we don't get to know them, or to care about them: the demands of drama, as well as the complexity of this particular story, means there's too little time. It's here, then, that luggage steps in. Oh, the tenderness of packing! Clothes carefully folded, more precious things layered in-between. In 1988, the wheeled bag was not yet ubiquitous. These suitcases, brown and ugly, are made of nylon and pleather, and as a result, tear all the harder at the heart. People travelled less then, and they took more with them. In their sateen-lined compartments is the whole of ordinary life, precious and sweet. It smells of toothpaste and aftershave and home. I hadn't expected much of Jonathan Lee's series, maybe because Sky Atlantic's Lockerbie drama earlier this year – Colin Firth played Dr Jim Swire, who spent decades fighting for justice for his daughter, Flora, who was killed in the bombing – was so disappointing, bogged down in detail and oddly flavourless. But it turns out I was wrong: this is a superior telling of the story, poignant and fascinating in equal measure. Lee, it's clear, did a lot of research. His screenplay is attentive to the small things, as well as the big (for instance, to the determination of a group of Lockerbie women to return the victims' possessions to their families, a job for which the Dumfries and Galloway Police have no time). But it benefits, too, from being an ensemble piece rather than a star vehicle. The lens is wide-angle, and all the better for it. I'm not sure about the accent wielded by Tom Thurman (Eddie Marsan), an FBI explosives expert who lends his knowhow to the investigation; his vowels appear to be on a long-distance flight of their own, from Texas to Somerset and back again. The loaf-like wig worn by Moira Shearer (Phyllis Logan), who serves tea and pies to exhausted servicemen and women in a Lockerbie school hall, looks like it was filched from the wardrobe of a Seventies impressionist. But otherwise, I'm all in. If Peter Mullan is reliably proficient as DCS John Orr, the senior investigating officer at Lockerbie, Connor Swindells (yes, from SAS: Rogue Heroes) is even more dexterous as Ed McCusker, a sergeant who's one of the first on the scene. Partly, it's physiological: that magnificent forehead of his, deployed here to signal kindness and concentration. But you have the sense, too, of an actor who's always listening to his co-stars, responding to them rather than merely anticipating his own lines. He is pale, low key, entirely convincing. On the night of the bomb, he finds a Lockerbie boy, Stephen (Archie McCormack), desperately combing the rubble of his home. Later, he visits him, taking with him one of his jackets for a forthcoming memorial service, and a bag of old comics. It's such a delicate scene. What good are cartoons, or even a good jacket, in the face of such loss? Somehow, though, Swindells pulls it off, triteness dodged. The boy, understanding that this policeman is only doing his best, gives him a pass, and in that moment McCusker's sudden shame becomes a gratitude you see in his shoulders as well as in his smile. Subscribe to The New Statesman today from only £8.99 per month Subscribe The Bombing of Pan Am 103 BBC One [See also: Are the Blairites still the future?] Related
Business Mayor
19-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Business Mayor
The Bombing of Pan Am 103 review – this kind, cheesy Lockerbie show just doesn't work as TV
T he bombing of Pan Am flight 103 on 21 December 1988 was an event so large, so complex and so significant that for a long time it was hard for anyone to take a clear view on it. Many elements remain murky to this day, despite – or perhaps because of – it being an act of terror that was unprecedented in its effect on Britain and the US. The plane exploded over the small town of Lockerbie in Scotland, having taken off from London on its way to New York and Detroit, completing a journey that began in Frankfurt. The hunt for the perpetrators soon focused on the Middle East and north Africa. With half the world demanding answers, the families of the 270 people killed found it difficult to be heard. The hidden human cost of the post-crash chaos is where The Bombing of Pan Am 103, a six-part fictionalisation, initially tries to find its dramatic impetus: the series argues that the dignity of the victims and the sensitivities of their loved ones were trampled. More care should have been taken to respect the dead, it says. But it struggles to turn this admirable sentiment into drama. First we have the disaster itself, and the fateful scenes before it of passengers boarding, and Lockerbie residents going about their innocent pre-Christmas business. For shows about infamous atrocities, these introductory passages are always hard. How long do you linger on these people who are doomed? Lead writer Jonathan Lee employs quick vignettes with mixed results. A girl clutching her teddy bear, a beloved toy that we come across later in a charred field, can't help but feel cheesy, despite its roots in reality; but the Lockerbie boy who survives the destruction of his family home because he is out organising his sister's big present is a piercing happenstance. The series does a stout job of portraying the scale and violence of what befell Lockerbie. The force of the blazing debris landing is startling, as is an impressive tableau of a whole street on fire. The sight of luggage scattered on a winding country road, picked out by the weaving headlights of a police car, shows what a horribly macabre scene the early responders encountered. Among the first police to arrive are DS Ed McCusker (Connor Swindells) of Glasgow CID and senior investigating officer DCS John Orr (Peter Mullan). Before long, McCusker is having to tell FBI man Dick Marquise (Patrick J Adams) to give the shocked people of Lockerbie some time before he charges in to interview them; Orr, meanwhile, is dealing with Americans who assume they are the most important person in any room, and a UK government envoy who smugly tries to assert the authority of Britain over Scotland. A squabble over jurisdiction hampering the quest for truth is one thing, but the series seems genuinely exercised by the importance of Orr being in charge, in and of itself. 'Scottish soil! Scottish evidence! Scottish procedure!' he barks at someone who doubts his authority, in a way that surely isn't intended to make him seem parochial and pompous, but does. The drama's other main focus is the way the bombing brought out the best in compassionate, resourceful people and communities, and here there is no doubt that it has right on its side. Lockerbie locals insisted on staying with bodies that had ended up on their land, not wanting the dead to be left alone; the town's women volunteered to clean and sort the passengers' bloodied clothing. Touching gestures of course, but the scenes portraying them don't have any conflict or stakes – they're not so much drama as reporting. Read More MPs consider naming Chinese 'spy' linked to Prince Andrew And on occasion, the show's desire to pay service to the victims tips into sentimentality. Lead volunteer Moira Shearer (Phyllis Logan) bemoans what she sees as an unacceptable delay in returning a Bible found among the wreckage to the owner's loved ones, for which she blames Orr's skewed priorities; the FBI's top man Marquise dismisses his wife's emotional paean to the people lost, then relents when he sees a wrapped gift among the effects of one of the deceased. The message is that the investigators ought to have been more mindful of the victims as individuals who mattered – we might value that attitude now, but was that really the case at the time, for senior investigators tasked with solving the mystery of a major international terror attack? Surely they were right to have their eye on the bigger picture. The show's viewpoint should sharpen in the remaining episodes, which build up a picture of new relationships formed and further inspiring kindnesses exchanged. For now, though, this is a drama that knows its subject matter is important, but isn't sure why.
Yahoo
18-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
The Bombing of Pan Am 103 review – this kind, cheesy Lockerbie show just doesn't work as TV
The bombing of Pan Am flight 103 on 21 December 1988 was an event so large, so complex and so significant that for a long time it was hard for anyone to take a clear view on it. Many elements remain murky to this day, despite – or perhaps because of – it being an act of terror that was unprecedented in its effect on Britain and the US. The plane exploded over the small town of Lockerbie in Scotland, having taken off from London on its way to New York and Detroit, completing a journey that began in Frankfurt. The hunt for the perpetrators soon focused on the Middle East and north Africa. With half the world demanding answers, the families of the 270 people killed found it difficult to be heard. The hidden human cost of the post-crash chaos is where The Bombing of Pan Am 103, a six-part fictionalisation, initially tries to find its dramatic impetus: the series argues that the dignity of the victims and the sensitivities of their loved ones were trampled. More care should have been taken to respect the dead, it says. But it struggles to turn this admirable sentiment into drama. First we have the disaster itself, and the fateful scenes before it of passengers boarding, and Lockerbie residents going about their innocent pre-Christmas business. For shows about infamous atrocities, these introductory passages are always hard. How long do you linger on these people who are doomed? Lead writer Jonathan Lee employs quick vignettes with mixed results. A girl clutching her teddy bear, a beloved toy that we come across later in a charred field, can't help but feel cheesy, despite its roots in reality; but the Lockerbie boy who survives the destruction of his family home because he is out organising his sister's big present is a piercing happenstance. The series does a stout job of portraying the scale and violence of what befell Lockerbie. The force of the blazing debris landing is startling, as is an impressive tableau of a whole street on fire. The sight of luggage scattered on a winding country road, picked out by the weaving headlights of a police car, shows what a horribly macabre scene the early responders encountered. Among the first police to arrive are DS Ed McCusker (Connor Swindells) of Glasgow CID and senior investigating officer DCS John Orr (Peter Mullan). Before long, McCusker is having to tell FBI man Dick Marquise (Patrick J Adams) to give the shocked people of Lockerbie some time before he charges in to interview them; Orr, meanwhile, is dealing with Americans who assume they are the most important person in any room, and a UK government envoy who smugly tries to assert the authority of Britain over Scotland. A squabble over jurisdiction hampering the quest for truth is one thing, but the series seems genuinely exercised by the importance of Orr being in charge, in and of itself. 'Scottish soil! Scottish evidence! Scottish procedure!' he barks at someone who doubts his authority, in a way that surely isn't intended to make him seem parochial and pompous, but does. The drama's other main focus is the way the bombing brought out the best in compassionate, resourceful people and communities, and here there is no doubt that it has right on its side. Lockerbie locals insisted on staying with bodies that had ended up on their land, not wanting the dead to be left alone; the town's women volunteered to clean and sort the passengers' bloodied clothing. Touching gestures of course, but the scenes portraying them don't have any conflict or stakes – they're not so much drama as reporting. And on occasion, the show's desire to pay service to the victims tips into sentimentality. Lead volunteer Moira Shearer (Phyllis Logan) bemoans what she sees as an unacceptable delay in returning a Bible found among the wreckage to the owner's loved ones, for which she blames Orr's skewed priorities; the FBI's top man Marquise dismisses his wife's emotional paean to the people lost, then relents when he sees a wrapped gift among the effects of one of the deceased. The message is that the investigators ought to have been more mindful of the victims as individuals who mattered – we might value that attitude now, but was that really the case at the time, for senior investigators tasked with solving the mystery of a major international terror attack? Surely they were right to have their eye on the bigger picture. The show's viewpoint should sharpen in the remaining episodes, which build up a picture of new relationships formed and further inspiring kindnesses exchanged. For now, though, this is a drama that knows its subject matter is important, but isn't sure why. • The Bombing of Pan Am 103 aired on BBC One and is on iPlayer now.
The Guardian
18-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
The Bombing of Pan Am 103 review – this kind, cheesy Lockerbie show just doesn't work as TV
The bombing of Pan Am flight 103 on 21 December 1988 was an event so large, so complex and so significant that for a long time it was hard for anyone to take a clear view on it. Many elements remain murky to this day, despite – or perhaps because of – it being an act of terror that was unprecedented in its effect on Britain and the US. The plane exploded over the small town of Lockerbie in Scotland, having taken off from London on its way to New York and Detroit, completing a journey that began in Frankfurt. The hunt for the perpetrators soon focused on the Middle East and north Africa. With half the world demanding answers, the families of the 270 people killed found it difficult to be heard. The hidden human cost of the post-crash chaos is where The Bombing of Pan Am 103, a six-part fictionalisation, initially tries to find its dramatic impetus: the series argues that the dignity of the victims and the sensitivities of their loved ones were trampled. More care should have been taken to respect the dead, it says. But it struggles to turn this admirable sentiment into drama. First we have the disaster itself, and the fateful scenes before it of passengers boarding, and Lockerbie residents going about their innocent pre-Christmas business. For shows about infamous atrocities, these introductory passages are always hard. How long do you linger on these people who are doomed? Lead writer Jonathan Lee employs quick vignettes with mixed results. A girl clutching her teddy bear, a beloved toy that we come across later in a charred field, can't help but feel cheesy, despite its roots in reality; but the Lockerbie boy who survives the destruction of his family home because he is out organising his sister's big present is a piercing happenstance. The series does a stout job of portraying the scale and violence of what befell Lockerbie. The force of the blazing debris landing is startling, as is an impressive tableau of a whole street on fire. The sight of luggage scattered on a winding country road, picked out by the weaving headlights of a police car, shows what a horribly macabre scene the early responders encountered. Among the first police to arrive are DS Ed McCusker (Connor Swindells) of Glasgow CID and senior investigating officer DCS John Orr (Peter Mullan). Before long, McCusker is having to tell FBI man Dick Marquise (Patrick J Adams) to give the shocked people of Lockerbie some time before he charges in to interview them; Orr, meanwhile, is dealing with Americans who assume they are the most important person in any room, and a UK government envoy who smugly tries to assert the authority of Britain over Scotland. A squabble over jurisdiction hampering the quest for truth is one thing, but the series seems genuinely exercised by the importance of Orr being in charge, in and of itself. 'Scottish soil! Scottish evidence! Scottish procedure!' he barks at someone who doubts his authority, in a way that surely isn't intended to make him seem parochial and pompous, but does. The drama's other main focus is the way the bombing brought out the best in compassionate, resourceful people and communities, and here there is no doubt that it has right on its side. Lockerbie locals insisted on staying with bodies that had ended up on their land, not wanting the dead to be left alone; the town's women volunteered to clean and sort the passengers' bloodied clothing. Touching gestures of course, but the scenes portraying them don't have any conflict or stakes – they're not so much drama as reporting. And on occasion, the show's desire to pay service to the victims tips into sentimentality. Lead volunteer Moira Shearer (Phyllis Logan) bemoans what she sees as an unacceptable delay in returning a Bible found among the wreckage to the owner's loved ones, for which she blames Orr's skewed priorities; the FBI's top man Marquise dismisses his wife's emotional paean to the people lost, then relents when he sees a wrapped gift among the effects of one of the deceased. The message is that the investigators ought to have been more mindful of the victims as individuals who mattered – we might value that attitude now, but was that really the case at the time, for senior investigators tasked with solving the mystery of a major international terror attack? Surely they were right to have their eye on the bigger picture. The show's viewpoint should sharpen in the remaining episodes, which build up a picture of new relationships formed and further inspiring kindnesses exchanged. For now, though, this is a drama that knows its subject matter is important, but isn't sure why. The Bombing of Pan Am 103 aired on BBC One and is on iPlayer now.
BBC News
17-05-2025
- Entertainment
- BBC News
The Bombing of Pan Am 103 cast and creatives discuss the making of the new BBC factual drama series
On 21 December 1988, flight Pan Am 103 was en route from Heathrow to JFK when a bomb exploded in its hold over Lockerbie, killing 270 people, including 43 British citizens and 190 Americans. It was the worst ever terror attack on British soil and the first major act of terrorism against US citizens. Made by World Productions, with lead writer Jonathan Lee, The Bombing of Pan Am 103 follows the untold story of the Scots-US investigation into the attack and the devastating effect it had on the small town and the families who lost loved ones. From the initial exhaustive search for evidence on the ground in Scotland, via the US and Malta to the trial at Camp Zeist in 2000, the series leads up to the upcoming new trial in the US. The six-part series also highlights the human impact on the families, investigators and the Lockerbie community as it sought to rebuild and connect with bereaved families around the world. The executive producers are Simon Heath and Roderick Seligman for World Productions; Steve Stark and Stacey Levin for Toluca Pictures, Adam Morane-Griffiths, Sara Curran, Herbert L. Kloiber for Night Train Media, Jonathan Lee, Michael Keillor; and Gaynor Holmes for the BBC. The co-executive producer is Joe Hill. Mona Qureshi and Manda Levin lead for Netflix. The Bombing of Pan Am 103 is produced by World Productions, an ITV Studios company, in association with MGM Television and Night Train Media. The series will premiere on BBC iPlayer and BBC One in the UK, and will be available on Netflix globally at a later date. Watch The Bombing of Pan Am 103 on BBC iPlayer from Sunday 18 May SH2 Interview with Connor Swindells D.S. Ed McCusker How would you describe the series to those who don't know the story? The series is about the police force who investigated the case. It follows all the key figures involved in trying to get justice for this terrible attack that happened in 1988 over a small town in Scotland called Lockerbie, where Flight Pan Am 103 was bombed out of the sky. Why do you think people should watch The Bombing of Pan Am 103? People should watch this because I myself didn't know much about this terrible event before taking on this role. The whole filming process was really informative for me, and I think this is a moment in history that people who aren't familiar with should be. It's so important to memorialise the people who lost their lives, both those on the flight and those on the ground. And I think it is also important for people to understand the toll that was taken on those who tried to help as best they could – the police force and the surrounding community in the Lockerbie area. What were your first impressions of the script? The main draw for me was the way this script delicately tells a story which was so awful and horrific. The script handles such a hard subject with extreme sensitivity. What was it like to play this role? It was hard playing someone who was on the frontlines of a case such as this. Emotionally it definitely takes a toll and I didn't realise that before we started filming, perhaps naively. There certainly is a tax that comes with even just a 'smidge' of putting myself into this world, though of course it is just a very small fraction of what the real-life investigators we're depicting experienced. This is a story that must be handled with care, and we felt the responsibility of depicting this subject matter with responsibility and respect. What was it like meeting the real Edward McCusker? Meeting Ed was great, he's an incredibly warm, friendly man who was so generous with his time. He had me around to lunch at his house. He was so generous with trying to recount as much as possible the events that occurred, lifting me up with as much support as he could. He's been a great resource, not just to me but to everyone on this production, and I'm very grateful. Does portraying a real-life story change how you approach a role? Being part of a drama that's based on a real story like this affects every little decision you make. There is definitely a pressure, a want and a need to do justice to the people involved and to the events. It's the hardest I've ever worked, I'd say. It's been a real lesson in trying to do justice to the truth every single day, which is how it should be. What has been the most interesting or memorable part of filming? Every day was interesting, there were always new things I was learning about what actually happened with the case – the ways in which they uncovered the truth and the great 'hive mind' that came together to get it done. What's it been like filming and working in Scotland? It's been a dream, the people have been so brilliant and welcoming to me. I love Scotland and I spend a lot of time up here, my partner is from here. It's a place that's familiar to me and a place I feel at home. Interview with Patrick J. Adams Dick Marquise How would you describe this series? The series is about the events following December 21st 1988 when a plane, Pan Am 103, blew up over the UK and crashed into the small town of Lockerbie, killing 270 people. Our series focuses not only on what turned out to be a very long and complicated investigation with a lot of different law enforcement agencies working together, but also the human impact and the stories of some of the victims and their families as they try to make sense of this horrific event. Why do you think people should watch the series? I think this is a really important story for everybody to be familiar with. Just in my short time working on this I've asked a lot of people, especially younger people, if they know about it and I'm shocked by the amount of people who don't know what happened. I'm of a generation where I'm just about old enough to have an awareness of what happened, because of that I had an understanding of the implications and what it meant. I think it's important for people, especially younger generations, to inform themselves about this event – what happened to these people, how they came together as a community. Ultimately this was a horrific story with an unimaginable loss of life, but also a group of people coming together to do their jobs and to find each other at a time of crisis. I think that is a timeless story and something we can always take value from. What first attracted you to the series? I was attracted to the story because I knew about Lockerbie, I was seven years old when it happened and I was living in the UK at the time. For me, as soon as I heard there was a series being made about the events my first reaction was 'how has this never happened before?' It's such a monumental story and a historic moment. At that time, I didn't understand all the details of the investigation or of the people involved, but I knew this was an important story to be a part of. As an actor you don't always get the opportunity to work on things that you know in your core are important stories that need to be told, and this is one of them. After reading the scripts and seeing what the writers had done with it, I thought they'd handled it beautifully. There is a lot of investigation-specific content and that is important to provide an understanding of how these people found justice. The script also does an amazing job of balancing the very human story of what's happening - the victims and the man Connor portrays, Ed, who really has to straddle that line between the investigation and the human impact. As soon as I saw the writing to both sides of that balance I knew I wanted to be a part of it. What was it like to portray Agent Dick Marquise? Playing Dick Marquise has been a real honour. I've only played a real person on two other occasions. One was John Glenn, one of the Mercury astronauts and unfortunately he was no longer with us. This is the first time I've played someone where I've had the opportunity to really interact with them and ask them questions, which I have done ceaselessly. It's an incredible thing as an actor to have access to somebody who has the lived experience that Dick Marquise has. He was completely enveloped by this investigation and to this day going on almost 80 years old he remembers every detail of it. He is so excited to share that information with anyone and he welcomed me with open arms. He is so excited this story is going to be told and that more people will understand what went into it from every angle. To play him, to play someone who found themselves at the forefront of the American arm of this investigation is such a gift, especially as he's an incredible person. He is someone who very early on understood that they were working at a disadvantage in this investigation because they didn't know how to communicate. His whole life has been about how it is fine if you have a lot of information and intelligence, but if we're not willing to communicate it and to share it then what are we doing? Ultimately, I think that is a fantastic part of the story, it's about people connecting and communicating with each other. Playing Dick has been a phenomenal journey, I just feel so grateful that I got to meet him let alone 'be' him for a few months. Does portraying a real-life story change how you approach a role? Playing a real person, someone you have access to, it means that you have this breadth of resource. There's clinical information, logistical information, but also just from talking to them you get a sense of how they communicate, what drives them, what frustrates them. All those little details that are hard to put into words, you get those nuances. As an actor this is like a feeding frenzy because usually you have to make that up, you have to come up with that out of the ether. When you get to just sit and talk to a person you get to wash yourself in all of these details. You're still different, you're still a version of the character, it's still me playing someone but I'm not doing an impersonation of Dick Marquise. I have a very good idea of what drives him; what he wanted to accomplish when he got up in the morning, how he did things, how he was organised, why this mattered to him and how it changed over time. As an actor I've felt like I've had so much more at my disposal than I typically do on a set. What surprised you most about this story? I think what surprised me the most was just how complicated the investigation was. Before knowing all the details of how this played out I'd have assumed that the FBI would be welcomed with open arms into any investigation, maybe that's my Western, North American bias. Then to learn that of course that wasn't the case, this was an attack that happened on Scottish soil, it was something that belonged to the Scots in a way and they had to be up front. I'd never imagined how complicated an investigation like that would be. Even though everyone wants the same thing – to get to the answer of who did this, who is responsible, how did they do it and how do we hold them accountable – you have different people with different agendas, different ways of going about that. You have egos involved, we're human beings and it's an imperfect thing trying to solve an unimaginable crime. I've been amazed at all the details of these people who all want the same thing struggling to get on the same page, I'm sure that's something that still happens to this day. I think I take for granted, as someone who doesn't know a tonne about law enforcement or didn't until doing this, that everybody would just roll up their sleeves and work together and it would be easy. I was also so surprised by the details of the investigation, the fact that this was an enormous 850 square mile crime scene and ultimately the evidence that led to al-Megrahi's conviction is this tiny piece of plastic from a motherboard that would fit on the end of your finger. Just the scale of that with this tiny thing that comes out of this enormous, unimaginable, horrible event stretched over hundreds of square miles. I think there is something profoundly amazing about that and the fact human beings have the capacity to find that piece of evidence that leads to the arrest and conviction of al-Megrahi. What has it been like filming and working in Scotland? I love working in Scotland, it was my first time being here as an adult. It's been fantastic, with incredible people. I missed my family, but much like Dick Marquise he went through the same thing; he hardly saw his wife and kids because he was on the road so much. Even in that there is a sort of tether between us, this is the sacrifice of working on something that matters so much to you. And in Lockerbie itself? One of the most amazing things that happened outside of filming was going to Lockerbie with Dick Marquise and Tom Thurman, that was my first time in the town. Getting to walk around, to go to Sherwood Crescent and have Dick and Tom talk me through what they found when they first arrived at the scene, especially Tom who was there within the first few days, that was one of the most profound experiences and like a pilgrimage of sorts. Interview with Merritt Wever Kathryn Turman How much did you know about these events before taking on the role? I'm not sure that I was quite old enough for the events to be on my radar when they occurred. But as there were so many Syracuse students on the flight, I found that once I began speaking to people at home in New York about what I was going to film next there were actually quite a lot of people in my life who not only knew about it and remembered it, but knew people who were on the plane or their family members. I think it probably speaks to the international nature of what happened, that somebody who lives in New York could know so many people who were affected. What research did you do to prepare? There was a lot of material on Kathryn Turman. I don't think that she would consider herself a public figure, but I found so many interviews, videos and podcasts. She had recently retired, so there were a lot of pieces written about her. I could hear her voice, so I was able to work with a wonderful dialect coach. I also had this wealth of research and information from interviews Jonathan Lee and Adam Morane-Griffiths had done with her. She very generously sent along the diary she kept at the time of the trials. It was a diary in a very professional capacity, I think she knew that it would be important to keep this documented. There really was a bevy of information to draw on. I found all of this stuff that was really fascinating, stuff I really admired about her that there just wasn't room for in the series - as it isn't specifically focused on just Kathryn's story - but I see her, I see her experience. I was listening to an interview on a podcast where she talks about growing up 10 miles from the site of a truly awful explosion in New London, Texas. This was in 1937 before she was born, where nearly 300 people died in a school due to a gas leak. Kathryn talks about growing up in the shadow of that event and seeing how deeply it affected not just the people it happened to, but the town, towns nearby, and generations that followed. It primed her to have a real understanding of trauma, its effects, what different people need in the face of trauma, and what happens intergenerationally when those needs aren't met. I thought that was an interesting part of her origin story. There are also really tragic coincidences, like the fact that a beloved Senator who she worked for died himself in a plane crash. I remember in one interview she said she knew when she was young that she wanted her life to be something other than long, and I think she certainly accomplished that. I was thinking about how these events are a precursor to what ends up being her life's work. She is able to take what she learns post-Lockerbie and apply it to her own home country after 9/11, chillingly only mere months after the trial ends. The series contains a bit of the lead up to what I think her mission in life ultimately becomes, which is to institutionalise compassion at a governmental level. Did you get to meet her? I didn't get to meet her. She offered to speak with me, but I think because of the way the schedule panned out it didn't happen. Sometimes I can get caught between playing the person on the page in the script I'm given, and then playing the person I start to research, to read about, or meet. Those things can sometimes be at odds, I can start using the real person as my bible instead of the script as my bible. I may have been overly careful in that respect, but for this project I think I absolutely would have asked to speak with her had there not already been so much material available. I didn't feel like there was a dearth of information and I think that may have been why it felt safe to decide not to speak. Do you approach a role differently when portraying a real-life person? No, just that sometimes I've noticed one of the pitfalls can be that I start to use the facts or real person as the largest touchstone, as opposed to really turning my gaze back to the page of the script I'm playing. It can become a bit of a warring endeavour internally. What was the most memorable scene to film? When I look back, I remember two days where there was a real energy on set. They happen to be two days where large groups of the cast were gathered. We were shooting some of the gravest material, and I think that happens sometimes when you are shooting some of the heavier stuff, that's the most important to get right. I remember the actors finding a sense of camaraderie with each other and I think that makes sense given where we were at that point in the story as well. Because the role of Kathryn exists off in the U.S. for a lot of the story - speaking to one character at a time, or people on the phone - I think it was really nice to be able to gather with the other actors in a group, after spending so much time working on Kathryn in other locations. Interview with Eddie Marsan Tom Thurman How would you describe the series to those who may not be familiar with these events? It's the story of the bombing of Pan Am 103, the flight that crashed in Lockerbie. It's about the team and their efforts to find out who did it, to solve the puzzle of it. It's a fascinating journey. Why do you think people should watch the series? I think people should watch this because it's a fascinating, powerful and moving series. The bombing was a terrible moment in history. The perseverance, care and conscientious nature of the investigating team and the forensics specialists was incredible. The way the community came together, internationally, to help the families of the victims was remarkable. It's a very sad story but it's very inspirational. What first attracted you to the script? I remember it happening. When I met Tom Thurman, who I play, I found him to be a fascinating man because he loves his job, he is a great puzzle solver. The chance to play him in this story was the reason I wanted to do it. What did you take from your meeting with Tom to help you prepare for the role? He's quite impish, he loves nothing better than to be in a laboratory solving problems. Tom is very inspired by his job, he was a bomb disposal expert for years and then became a lecturer. He finds the puzzle of it all incredibly rewarding, trying to find out who planted the bomb and working everything out. Does the fact that this is a true story impact the way you approach the role? Yes, we had to be very careful and very respectful because this is an event where people lost their lives. That was already taken care of in the writing room, because the writers were so conscious of that responsibility. What I wanted to do was get to know Tom and find out as much as I could do about him in order to give a respectful and accurate performance. What did working on the series teach you about the real events? What surprised me most was the collaboration, how so many people – locally in Lockerbie and internationally – came together to solve this crime. They couldn't move on unless it was solved and everybody came together to do that, that's what I found most fascinating. Interview with Phyllis Logan Moira Shearer How would you describe the series to those unfamiliar with the story? Most people, certainly who I've told that I'm doing this job, are very well aware of the Pan Am disaster of 1988. It's a real-life story that took place where an aeroplane was exploded over Lockerbie just before Christmas and this series charts that, more or less right from the beginning. It charts the whole investigation and how it affected the town itself, as a number of the locals were also killed as well as everybody on the plane. It turns up all manner of things, certain aspects of the bombing that you wouldn't necessarily have known about, quite shocking ones actually. But it's also got a very human element to it as well, we see lots of relationships growing through it – with the people of Lockerbie and the victims' families, and within the forces that worked on the investigation. The real events still very much affect the people that were directly involved, the victims' loved ones and their families, so we were very conscious and sensitive to that when making the series. What first attracted you to this script? When I was first asked about the script and whether I'd be interested I was informed about the story of the women of Lockerbie, which I wasn't previously aware of myself. Their storyline very much rang a note with me, I thought it would be a very interesting and lovely thing to portray. The women took the belongings of the victims and cleaned them up as best they could before repatriating the items to families and loved ones of the victims. It was a really heartwarming thing for them to do, I think they saw it as their duty actually and I was intrigued by that part of the story. I felt so lucky to be able to portray some of the ladies who were involved in this wonderful scheme that they took upon themselves. Was there anything else you learned that surprised you? There's quite a number of things. We filmed a graveside scene where it was like the equivalent of an unknown soldier; a grave for the bodies that had never been recovered. I found that so moving and heart wrenching. Also learning the fact that the powers that be had been given warnings there would be a bomb planted on a Pan Am aircraft, it's unthinkable that this could have been avoided. Interview with Director Michael Keillor How familiar were you with these events before the project began? I was incredibly familiar with the events. I was 15 when the attack happened over Lockerbie. I was supposed to be going on a skiing holiday with my school and we got diverted the other way down the country because there had been a crash. Then, on the way home, we drove right past Lockerbie and were able to see the crash out the windows of the coach. It was the biggest terrorist attack in Britain but also very big for Scotland because nothing like that had ever happened in the country before. I knew a lot about the attack and post-attack but not as much about the later trial. I'd tracked the story a little bit, and obviously knew the end result, but I didn't know about the 10 years of investigation and debate to get there. What drew you to this project? I'd always had in mind why no-one had told the story of The Bombing of Pan Am 103. I'm drawn to stories of injustice and I thought it was a chance to make a big bold project in Scotland, including Scottish cast, telling a very Scottish story. And it had an international reach, because of the connection with America. The investigation and the story itself is very expansive. How do you bring something of that scale to the screen within the confines of a drama? The scale of it was the biggest challenge, both visually and story-wise, because in this sort of 'true crime' investigation you can't just have investigation. You have to see the life of the characters, in the world they're inhabiting, going through the investigation. We had to look at the key moments of the trial and work backwards to see how the investigation unfolded to reveal the big turning points. Then we had to try and find a journey for these characters that was as engaging as possible to intertwine with the investigation. Can you talk more about the scale of the production itself? I think it must be one of the BBC's biggest ever productions, certainly in Scotland, both in scale of events and production. We don't depict the bombing itself, but we show the immediate aftermath in the town and across Scotland. This involved collaborating with our production designer, Anna Pritchard, to build an entire street (which we did in Bathgate in Scotland) in order to show the devastating impact the bombing and crash had on the houses below. It was very important to me to get the veracity of the show absolutely right. All the research that was done was to check the accuracy of what we were doing. And we were on location all the time, just to give that texture and to make it feel as real as possible. What do you find are the key differences when directing fictional story versus telling a true story? I'd never directed a true story before, but I've done lots of fictional stories that were either based a bit around a truth or had a strong emotional truth to them. The massive difference is that you're dealing with the lives of real people. We met some of the families, investigators and people on the ground in Lockerbie who'd been through this. There is that responsibility when it's real people and their stories and not just a work of TV fiction. But that also gives it a veracity, an edge and a sensitivity that you wouldn't normally have in a regular drama. How did the input from the real people help shape the drama? Before we started shooting, we had conversations with different investigators and they had input on the script in terms of the technical side of what happened; the bomb, plane, explosions and other things on the ground in Sherwood Crescent where many parts of the plane crash landed. We also talked to many of the families beforehand, to get a sense of how it impacted them both at the time and for the next 30 years afterwards. It put that sort of emotional weight in your chest as you went into the project. When the real people became involved, it became incredibly real. During filming the investigators often came along and helped us out on set, such as Dick Marquise, Tom Thurman and Ed McCusker as well. We had hands on people who'd actually been there with us, talking about the bombing, the bits of the plane and how the investigation was done. That kind of stuff was invaluable. I've had experts before on the set of a drama but here I had the actual person who found the piece of bomb material and could tell us exactly where they found it. Also, Eddie Marsan was chatting to Tom Thurman who he's playing and Patrick J. Adams was chatting to Dick Marquise. They're very engaging characters, both in their late 70s and 80s now. It was great that they could talk to the actors and give them their input and experience. It gave the actors a real anchor to hold on to. Was it important to have many Scottish cast members? We do have a very Scottish cast including Phyllis Logan as Moira Shearer, Peter Mullan as John Orr, James Harkness as Sandy Gay, Kevin McKidd as Tom McCulloch and Tony Curran as Harry Bell and more, which I think gives it a great local soul. A lot of those actors also remember what happened and knew where they were on that night. We also have the international reach of Patrick J. Adams as Dick Marquise, Eddie Marsan as Tom Thurman and Merritt Wever as Kathryn Turman to give a sense that this is a global story. It just so happened that it started in a small town in Scotland. And you filmed in Lockerbie itself? We filmed in Lockerbie for two days. We shot at Tundergarth Church, at the cemetery and the town hall. We were very sensitive to the fact that the people of Lockerbie have already been through this and they don't need to go through it again. We therefore, of course, didn't film any of the aftermath scenes in 1988 in or around the town. It was all filmed on location though and we mainly shot based out of Glasgow and the surrounding areas. We had to try and find buildings that were of the period between 1988-1990 and actually there was much more of that around Glasgow that we could piggyback into for our locations. Are there any particular scenes that you're most proud of in the series? The sequence when Ed McCusker, played by Connor Swindells, arrives at Sherwood Crescent where the wing of the plane exploded. Hopefully that is a powerful, impactful sequence. It was a large scale scene to do, but it's also a really important part because it depicts the shock and awe that none of us have ever seen of what actually happened on that night. We've only really had the news reports and read about it so I hope it gives a sense of the scale of the horror of what happened, which sometimes gets lost. What do you hope viewers will take away from this series once they've watched it? I hope it's a reminder of how huge this thing that happened was. It was a catalyst for the start of aeroplane and airport safety going forward, but it was also a pivotal moment for global terrorism and how to fight it. It all started in Scotland, from an aeroplane blowing up over Lockerbie. I also really wanted to show the human impact on the town of Lockerbie and how the people of the community pulled together to support each other and the families from America who came over. The stoicism and heart of that community has really been something that's gone on silently for the last 30 years, as opposed to the trial and the criminal investigation aspects. Interview with lead writer Jonathan Lee How familiar were you with these events before the project began? I was eight years old when the bombing occurred. I was with my parents in England but we had family in Scotland, just outside Glasgow. I vividly remember catching snippets of the story on TV. It's probably the first news story I really remember seeing play out on our boxy TV as a kid. I remember that in my childish ignorance the realisation was really shocking to me; that a 747 could fall out of the sky and that someone would deliberately make that happen. In adulthood I felt like I knew the story somewhat from having grown up at that time, but I realised more and more on this project how much there actually was to know. It's taken a few years to draw back the curtain and see some of the details that history doesn't record, those that posterity and its desire to simplify push into the footnotes. What drew you to this project? I'm particularly interested in Britain in the 1980s. I think it's a fascinating time, a time that holds a lot of clues to where we've ended up now. What I found fascinating was this idea of communication as a theme. The fact that the bomb itself was hidden in a communication device, a radio. Investigators literally had to piece together that communication device to crack the case, with pieces of debris spread across 850 square miles. It was the biggest crime scene the world had ever seen at that time. Across this investigation they also had to piece together the communication lines across borders, beliefs and individual agendas. That is a lesson we're constantly un-learning and re-learning as people it seems. The story seemed relevant and pressing. To me it's a historical piece but it seemed to access a lot of the issues that we're all dealing with now. It's a large scale and complex story, how do you decide what to leave out of the script and what to dramatise? It was hard. A story like this comes with a multiplicity of perspectives and if you privilege just one it can be difficult to capture the significance of the event and how many lives it touched. It was important from the outset to try and make space for a number of different perspectives in the series. We start in the place where all of those perspectives collide, four days before Christmas 1988. The Boeing 747 is departing Heathrow airport with 243 passengers and 16 crew aboard, many of them eager to get home to their families for Christmas. We follow the investigation from there, when the plane is bombed out of the sky. Through the course of the story, we also follow the families who came together. Hopefully by making space for all the stories to collide, you get a sense not just of the scale of the event but also the intimate ways that it touched people. The contrasting sense of scale seems to be at the heart of what this story is for us. How did the input from real people help shape the drama? Our series features detectives played by actors including Connor Swindells, Tony Curran and Peter Mullan. A number of the real former detectives on the case were able to give us first-hand accounts of being Glasgow CID detectives on duty that night when the plane fell from the sky onto their corner of Scotland, and that informed those characters. Many of them stepped up in some amazing ways to contribute to cracking the case, along with dozens of colleagues. We were also very lucky to have many hours of conversations with Dick Marquise who is played by Patrick J. Adams in the show. Dick led the FBI investigation and learned along the way to let the human side of these events into his investigations. Speaking to him about that, now over 30 years later, was totally fascinating. He has kept in touch with so many of the people he worked with over the course of this case. We spoke to many other people but a third person I'd highlight is Kathryn Turman, played by Merritt Wever in the series. She saw that, back in 1988, these big investigative institutions lacked a framework for putting families first in the wake of these disasters. She helped transform the Department of Justice and FBI from the inside out, essentially giving them a heart. She did so in this extraordinarily rigorous, compassionate yet unsentimental way. I remember an early conversation with Merritt, just before we started filming her first scenes in Scotland, where she described the real Kathryn as a 'doer' and as someone who shows up. She immediately understood the heart of the character. In all these kinds of disasters, there's often someone who comes in from the outside almost halfway through the story who brings fresh eyes, a fresh perspective and is able to cut through a lot of the red tape. Having the help of those three real people was incredibly useful in terms of understanding how the case unfolded from their perspectives. Speaking to many of the families who lost people on the plane was a very sobering and moving experience. It reminded me, and all of us, that in those family stories lie some of the greatest examples of heroism, activism and sacrifice from people who came together in the wake of this bomb that that blasted so much apart. The work they've done to make air travel safer for all of us and expose the truth has been quite remarkable. You must have learned a lot during this project? There were so many things that were really surprising. I had no idea that because the plane exploded at 31,000 feet and with the way the wind was blowing on that night, evidence and debris were spread across 850 square miles. That was an extraordinary fact that emerged and gave us a sense of scale early on. Finding out and digging into just to what extent the families banded together was surprising. It was also fascinating and humbling to learn how they lobbied the White House, fought for justice and made changes to the legislation. Also just appreciating the full forensic complexity of the case. It took so many different investigative bodies who had to figure out how to work together and communicate in order to get anywhere in this case. The FBI had to start speaking in a different way to the CIA. The Scottish police and the FBI had to learn to work together and the German BKA had to be involved. There were so many things that had to go right and so many barriers that had to be overcome to make any progress at all. In a way, it's a reflection of everyone who was on the plane. There were passengers from 21 countries on board. You didn't know who you were going to end up sitting next to and conversations occurred, friendships occurred. They obviously all had families and hopes and dreams and things they were good at and things they were working on. That somehow started to infuse the need for global cooperation in the wake of it all. If the plane had exploded over the Atlantic, as was probably intended, we would never know who committed the attack and the evidence would have been drowned forever. What do you think a drama can tell us about these events that perhaps news reporting or a documentary might not be able to? Sometimes recent history is the most invisible history. We often wait for the dust to settle but sometimes it means we don't look as hard at the things that have happened in the last few decades to a people or culture. While documentaries can tell us what happened in a given time, drama can be useful in showing us how it felt. It doesn't just inform us but takes us inside some of those intimate moments. It can bring back to life some of the details that other accounts have missed like bringing to the fore the human stories and smaller moments that can fall as I say into the footnotes of history. At its best drama based on real events can make you feel a moment as if you were there and hopefully create some empathy and understanding through it. It felt interesting - and appropriate - to try and subvert some of the usual tropes of a detective drama. We didn't want to pretend this case was cracked by one lone wolf "superhero" detective haunted by a much-flashbacked past. We wanted instead to try and follow and be true to the small, surprising specifics of the actual detective work itself as it unfolded in history, and the ways it impacted in small and big ways on those who had lost the most. This is a TV drama, but we tried not to 'characterify" our central players with the usual flaws and wounds we see in a standard detective fiction. Where key players slipped in and out of the real story (this was a 12-year investigation) we tried to be true to that too: life was happening while this case was happening. Births, losses, promotions, reassignments. Rather than over-simplify the reality of the story we were telling, we tried to reflect how the ongoing hunt for resolution is partial, imperfect and keeps being revised. What do you hope viewers will take away from this series once they've watched it? I hope that people will watch it and think about the lessons learned from the disaster. They are around cooperation, speaking truth, putting egos to one side and privileging human experience over institutional demands. I also hope that people who watch will remember the event. Going to memorial events over the last few years while working on this, in Lockerbie, or Arlington Cemetery in DC or in Syracuse, there's been a recurring theme from everyone involved. We all hope that this event can be remembered so we don't repeat the mistakes of the past. Are there any particular scenes that you're most proud of in the series? Some of those smaller scenes like the ones with the women of Lockerbie and the volunteers who stepped up in their community have probably stayed with me as much as anything else. I think it's because they speak to that contrasting sense of scale. There's this huge historical disaster, which is all the news was covering for a little while, but within that there are these small acts of kindness and care going on. I suppose shining a light on some of those seemingly small acts is a good reason in itself to make this series. Interview with screenwriter Gillian Roger Park (Episodes 4 and 5) How familiar were you with these events before the project began? I grew up on the West Coast of Scotland and was born four days before it happened. It's always been a part of life in Scotland for me. It cast a long shadow over life there and I don't remember a time before it happened. Similarly to a lot of people who live in Scotland, I knew generally about the bombing but didn't know the details of the investigation or why things happened in a certain way. I only knew about it in an emotional way. I didn't know the actual details about this big, scary thing that happened, although I thought I knew. Then when I got involved, I realised I had no idea about the scale of it - the investigation or how involved the FBI were with the Scottish police and how they had to work together. What drew you to this project? The main thing was Jonathan Lee's (lead writer) brilliant pilot. There's been a lot of interest in making a TV show or film about this attack in the past but Jonathan brought something really special with his perspective. It's very tender, not salacious or melodramatic. It was difficult to read but as soon as I read the pilot, I knew it was going to be very, very special. It's a large scale and complex story, how do you decide what to leave out of the script and what to dramatise? That was actually the biggest challenge of the whole project, finding a focus and clarity. It was a challenge to condense such a huge and complex narrative into six hours. Hundreds of families were affected, the investigation spanned over 12 years and the trial itself was over eight months. Having Ed McCusker, the detective played by Connor Swindells, as the anchor was a really fresh way into the story. It meant we could have the technical investigation but also see the emotional impact. But we could have told hundreds of stories. We knew that we really wanted to tell the family stories. It was such an honour to talk with so many of them. It was difficult but we knew that we really wanted to do them justice. How did the input from real life individuals help shape the drama? It was massive. It started with filmmaker Adam Morane-Griffiths who initiated the project and researched extensive interviews with Scottish police officers and representatives from US investigative agencies, many of whom had never previously shared their stories. All the people involved who are depicted and represented in the drama were hugely important and they had such crucial insight. Emotional insight was a big part of it and the stories they had in terms of what happened to them. But then they also shared stories about the aftermath of the campaigning that they did to make change. It was huge in terms of their impact on the way that victims' families are treated in the aftermath of these sorts of events. The families' campaigning was such a watershed moment. There was such a practical impact from their work after the attack. A lot of the protocols that were used after 9/11 in terms of victim support were brought in as a direct consequence of their campaigning. How amazing to go through what they went through and fight for other people not to go through it as well, not to be treated by their government in the way that they were. What was the most surprising thing you learned during this project? Probably one of the most surprising things was learning about the complexities of the investigation. Very normal police officers spent so much time and dedication on the investigation and they paid such attention to detail, often at a very high personal cost. I was surprised at the scale of it. The crime scene was one of the biggest in history and they spent so many years in this very technical, detail-oriented evidence-based investigation. I assumed that the FBI came in like the heroes, as we often imagine, but when you actually look at the detail it was the work of very normal Scottish police officers. They cracked the case by being very meticulous in their evidence collecting. The sheer number of pieces of evidence they had to organise before technology was really ready for it is so surprising. The Scottish police were actually more advanced with technology than the Americans on that front which is why they were able to assess so much evidence. As in real life, our main character Ed actually goes over to America to introduce them to the Scottish digital filing system. What do you think a drama can tell us about these events that perhaps news reporting or a documentary might not be able to? What is so great about drama is that you have the unique ability to make something that's incredibly difficult and complex to understand and turn it into a story that people can digest intellectually but also emotionally. We have the unique position to be able to tell the story from multiple points of view as well. Hopefully we can give people a bit of an insight into the hard work of the police and into the families and the emotional impact on everyone involved. Also, we can show how much change was brought about because of the campaigning that followed the attack. It was quite a watershed case in a lot of ways. Why do you think this is an important story to tell? It's really important for people to understand recent history. So much of this case was technical but I don't feel like you should have to have big scientific knowledge to understand why something happened in the way that it did. We're lucky to be able to tell the drama in a way that will hopefully allow people to understand it a little bit better. It was such a huge challenge to take all the intricate scientific data and put it into a drama that people will understand. It's really important that we don't just know about history but that we understand the human version of history. Although, it doesn't quite feel like history yet because it was only 37 years ago, but it is a huge part of Scottish history. What do you hope viewers will take away from this series? As a Scottish person, there was so much about this that I didn't know. How the locals and local police stepped up to help. I hope that people come away with a better understanding of these really normal people acting in an extraordinary way. The community showed such resilience, kindness and warmth. I think they will see that there's hope there because of the relationships formed between the families of those on the plane and the locals. I didn't know about that. How would you know about that? They don't put that on the news. It's such a brittle, tragic story but I hope people walk away with a little bit of hope. A lot of the time people turn away from grief, they're scared of it because it's too difficult, so they don't get involved. But these people absolutely turned towards grief. They turned towards tragedy and accepted people with open arms and showed such courage, on both sides. Interview with Producer Julia Stannard and Executive Producer Simon Heath How did this project begin? Julia - For me the project began when Simon asked if I would like to read an early draft of the script. As soon as I saw the title, and feeling confident that World's approach would be respectful, I knew this would be something I'd want to be involved in. Simon - I was approached by MGM in 2021 with an early draft of Jonathan Lee's script and Adam Morane-Griffiths' research, with a view to World producing. I knew the story of the bombing, but the project delivered an original perspective on the events which mixed the forensic detail and scale of the investigation with moving personal accounts, while avoiding sensationalism. I was hugely impressed by the range and detail of Adam's research, which provided a strong factual basis to challenge the conspiracy theories that had threatened to obscure the truth. The challenge was going to be financing such a huge production, thankfully Gaynor Holmes and the BBC Drama team shared my belief that this was a new and unique take on the story. We were then delighted that Netflix came onboard to complete the team. What did you set out to achieve with the series? Julia– It became clear to me when I started talking to people about the project that there is a whole generation who are unaware of the bombing, and those who do remember it don't know any of the important detail. The challenge was to wrangle the enormous amount of factual material into a clear narrative that would engage and inform an audience. In addition, there has been a lot of misinformation and conspiracy stories around the case, so our mission was to get to the heart of what really happened and to present that version to as wide an audience as possible. Simon – We wanted to bring this crucial piece of recent history to the widest possible audience. Whether you think you know the story, Adam's research combined with Jonathan and Gillian's scripts deliver so many events and details that you won't know. It seemed to me that there were many perspectives and voices that hadn't been heard before - the stories of those who investigated the case, or lost loved ones, or helped to rebuild the community. Our drama was a chance for other voices to be heard. Can you describe the research process and what it involved? Julia – Adam had formed relationships with key players in the case, namely Ed McCusker, Dick Marquise, Tom Thurman and Kathryn Turman. So for me it was about talking to these people and hearing their first-hand accounts of what happened. It was also about getting to know about them as people so we could represent them credibly within the drama. Once I felt I had a reasonable understanding of the case, my most important task was to contact the various support groups in both the US and UK to inform the bereaved families of our intention to make a drama and to see who might be willing to share their stories with us. Several families wanted to engage with the production and it is their stories you see portrayed in the drama. Human stories are at the heart of this terrible event, I believe that is the most important thing to honour. Alongside the editorial, we also had a huge task in terms of practical considerations. Although the majority of passengers were American, the plane fell on Scottish soil and so it felt important to make the drama in Scotland, although sensitivities meant that we would not want to film any of the actual disaster in Lockerbie itself. There is a substantial international element to the case, so we had key decisions to make in terms of where we could shoot and how best to make the budget work for such an ambitious project. Simon - Adam's original research gave the project broad and strong factual foundations on which we could develop the six scripts, but the research process continued beyond the development of the scripts right through production itself. As new questions and challenges emerged, Julia and Adam would return to our existing sources, while reaching out to new contacts who wanted to tell their stories. Crucial to all this were the families who had lost loved ones in the attack who wanted to share their experiences and – where they were comfortable – include them in the drama. Why is it important to tell this story? Julia - It is important to tell this story because we should never forget what happened on 21 December 1988. 270 innocent people died, and many more lives were destroyed as a result of grief and trauma. Some people hear the word Lockerbie and it means nothing beyond being a small Scottish town where a plane fell. There is so much more to this story in terms of the way the local community came together to support the bereaved families around the world, and those in the town who had lost family members, homes, and everything they had worked for. Simon – Even with a story as era defining as this, there's a danger that the pace of modern history moves so quickly that it can be forgotten. For many of the families, that's incredibly painful, particularly when they are seeking further justice, and more of the perpetrators brought to trial. For me, there's nothing more important than keeping the story alive for the broadest possible audience. How do you decide which events and individuals are depicted given the scale of the attack, the number of victims and the scope of the investigation? Julia – When dramatising a real event, it is always difficult to decide what to tell and what to leave out. Our starting point here was to work out how to give the audience the best understanding of the case. If something is not crucial in a complex investigation like this, then it's hard to justify its inclusion. In terms of characters, literally hundreds of investigators were involved in the case so we had to decide who to include and where we needed to combine the actions of many police officers into one character who could represent the experiences of a number of the real people involved. Most notably our Ed McCusker as shown in the drama reflects the experiences of a number of the Scottish cops who were involved in the initial investigation, as well as the real Ed McCusker. Alex Smith, whose father lived in Sherwood Crescent was one of the first of the Pollice Officers on the scene on the night of the crash. Alex also knew the Flannigan family, and of course Steven. Steven and his brother lost their parents and sister in the destruction of their family home on Sherwood Crescent. Although we tell elements of Alex's story, we don't depict him as a character in the programme and instead, our character of Ed incorporates his actions. Ed was crucial because not only was he among the investigators in Lockerbie immediately after the crash, he was a key player in the Holmes computer system which was used to log and process the enormous amount of evidence gathered. Furthermore, in his later role of witness protection he was instrumental in making Tony Gauci feel that he would be safe if he gave evidence about selling the contents of the bomb suitcase to Megrahi. In terms of families, we only dramatised the stories of those who wanted to be included or whose stories felt crucial to the case. For example Kaled Jaafar, who was for a while a key suspect although entirely innocent. We reached out to Khaled's father, Nazir, who was relieved to hear that finally the truth would be known about what happened to his family. Not only did Nazir Jaafar's son die in the crash, but he was blamed for the bombing and Nazir and his family were persecuted and vilified. In the context of the Lockerbie community, it felt important to include the Flannigan family because their experience is emblematic of the wider story: a young boy orphaned by the crash, who is then 'adopted' by the Lockerbie community whose acts of generosity and kindness were so extraordinary. With a case like Lockerbie, where so many families lost loved ones, there will always be some people who do not want the story to be told, whilst others feel that it is crucial to keep the story alive. All we can do is respect the privacy of those who do not want to take part, and to do our best to produce a drama that is truthful, decent, and honours those involved. Simon - In terms of who and what we included in the drama, we tried to honour the wishes of both camps. And while in only six hours of screentime we couldn't hope to reflect the detail of everyone's stories, we hope the drama captures the essential truth of the collective experiences. What are the most important factors when retelling a real-life story as sensitive as this? Julia - Authenticity, and respect. It is crucial to establish the truth of what happened in any real story and then find the best way to create a dramatic version of those events. This can be a challenge when dealing with events on this scale, but here it is imperative to maintain integrity and to find a way to tell the truth in a way that is relatable for a contemporary audience. Of course we always have to respect the people whose stories we are telling. The real events belong to them and we have to be careful and sensitive in how we portray what must be the most painful moments of some people's lives. Simon - Telling a story of this scale is incredibly challenging. You need to seek out the co-operation of as many of the real-world participants as possible, when they are comfortable to contribute. You need to be sensitive to the truth and attentive to the detail, while still delivering the experiences of hundreds of people over decades compressed into six hours of drama. Can you tell us about the relationship between production and the Lockerbie community itself? Julia - Our brilliant location manager Barry Laird contacted the relevant people in Dumfries and Galloway to let them know about our drama and we had a number of calls to discuss the possibility of filming certain material in Lockerbie itself. We were always clear that we would not want to recreate any of the devastation from the crash there, but rather later events that commemorated those who lost their lives, including the Tundergarth and Dryfesdale memorials. We were invited to attend a meeting with residents and local businesses at Lockerbie Town Hall where we discussed our intentions for the drama, and they could ask questions. We followed this up the next day with a drop in session at the town hall. A short while later, it was confirmed that we could film for two days in Lockerbie Town Hall, Tundergarth and Dryfesdale Cemetery, and this became a key part of the drama. We are really grateful to Lesley Annan and Steven Wylie at Dumfries and Galloway Council for their support of the production. It was a huge privilege to film in the places that honour the victims and this footage provides the final moments of the series. What was the biggest challenge? Julia - The biggest challenge was probably the scale of the production. Parts of the plane and its contents were spread across an 850 square mile area, making it the biggest crash site in British policing. Without sensationalising the crash itself, we needed to show the scale of the disaster and the size of the task facing the investigators. All of this needed to be handled sensitively, with respect for those who lost their lives, and those who witnessed first-hand the horrors of this terrible act of terrorism. Simon - The fundamental challenge was trying to distil a hugely complex, multi-stranded true story that unfolded over a decade into six hours. What do you hope viewers will take from the series? Julia - I think the most important thing is that we learn lessons from what happened at Lockerbie. That we need to work together as individuals and as an international community. That for the airline industry, people matter more than profit. That governments here and around the world have a responsibility to respect and protect their citizens. And that if a disaster does occur, the most important people are the families of the victims, and they need to be placed at the centre of the investigation and protected and prioritised. Simon - For a story that has often risked being overshadowed by macro-politics, we want viewers to reflect on the individual stories – the very human impact of the attack. We also want the audience to recognise the overlooked, extraordinary work of the Scots-US investigation in bringing the perpetrators to justice. And finally, to see the need for collaboration between nations to tackle global threats in an increasingly fragmenting modern age. Something we are at risk of forgetting all over again. Interview with Executive Producer Adam Morane-Griffiths How familiar were you with these events before the project began? I remember where I was when the attack happened. My father was a fighter pilot, he was a senior Commander of a fighter base in Suffolk. I remember seeing reports on the news and him coming back home in a flight suit at around 11pm or midnight. I remember it quite distinctly. What lead you to initiate this project? I was producing a docu-drama series about a horrendous set of murders in Glasgow and ended up in the back of a minibus with Ed McCusker - he'd investigated those murders. He had also been on the investigation following the bombing of Pan Am 103. We bonded because once he had left the police, he'd spent some time investigating the Troubles for the Irish Government. I asked him if he'd heard of my grandfather, who was assassinated in the Troubles, and he had. We got chatting and he asked if I'd heard about Operation Autumn Leaves, I hadn't but I went back to my hotel room and started to look into it. The next time I was with Ed I said how interesting I thought the story was but asked why he'd told me about it. Ed pointed out the connection to Lockerbie, and that's how I started, back around 2016, 2017. Operation Autumn Leaves is briefly in our series at the beginning of Episode Three where we see two men arrested by West German police during raids on properties in Neuss where the Syrian backed PFLP-GC had been assembling bombs. When I did my first research this was the point at which I was intrigued because it was so extraordinary; a bomb maker known to security services was arrested and then released two weeks before the attack on PA103. As a rabbit hole to go down, that was a substantial one. It's a large scale and complex story, how did you decide what the focus would be? The focus was always 'who?' Who committed this crime? Were the right people charged and convicted? And if so, who else was involved? Has justice been served? Is this accurate? For me, it had to come from that angle because there was so much noise, there's a mountain of it. Essentially that causes a laser focus on asking, what's the evidence? You've got the trial, that's a major, substantial document that you can go back to, to understand what evidence was presented. Then the question is how was this evidence found? What are people saying here? What's this account saying? When you investigate things so intensely you realise there are lots of blind alleys, literally hundreds of them. Much of the information is coming in via intelligence. The essential thing about this story is that it's not a normal police procedural. In a normal police story you have a suspect you're generally able to find and interview. This is a story where the crime was committed over our airspace by foreign nationals, which means that you can't suddenly knock on a door and start to question someone about allegations. In this instance, and at the time of the late 1980s, the foreign nationals were from a nation that had strong ties with Soviet Russia rather than American or 'Western' influence. This is in a sense a Cold War story. This made it impossible to question the suspects and puts the investigation at a substantial disadvantage. A key turning point in my research was reading the CIA cables, which back up the testimony of a key witness in the case. The witness was a CIA informant who brought his story to the American intelligence services three months before the attack over Lockerbie, yet the defence had tried to use the cables to cast doubt over his evidence. In reality there are elements of the investigation that we just can't follow within the confines of a drama series. There's a whole Scottish investigation in Germany and in Sweden that we refer to only briefly. Stepping back from all that, when you look at the many conspiracy theories claiming certain things weren't investigated, that is in fact not true. There were so many different teams across the whole board investigating absolutely every single person of interest, lead, thread, piece of data. How did the input from real people help shape the drama? There are two aspects to the drama, there's the investigative story and there's the story of the families. Regarding the investigative story, Ed McCusker initially thought it was too massive to dramatise. But the introductions made allowed me to speak to so many investigators, establish relationships and gain a knowledge and understanding of the events. The second part is the story of the families. They're amazing. Obviously, it's impossible to describe an entire group of diverse, completely different people with different experiences, different points of view in the same breath. However, what they achieved as a collective is extraordinary. Their stories have profoundly shaped the drama; it's the emotional spine of the story. What's really inspiring and life affirming is how the victims' families and the people of Lockerbie rebuilt themselves and built relationships. How they took their horrendous experience and changed the world, changed aviation safety, legislation, and security - that's an amazing and positive thing. What was the most surprising thing you learned during this project? That UTA 772 – a French passenger flight that was bombed over the Sahara desert – and Pan Am 103 are connected. You'll see that referenced in Episode five of the drama. It is quite horrific when you think the same people may be responsible for bringing two passenger planes down. What do you think a drama can tell us about these events that perhaps news reporting or a documentary might not be able to? The Pan Am 103 investigation is so complex and so massive. It spans many different countries, teams, and agencies that it is fantastically difficult to grip. The body of information is vast, anyone who has spent the time to properly understand it will say the same. It's all-consuming. Drama allows you to see the evidence, its discovery and interpretation from the point of view of the investigators, which I hope makes it easier to understand and remember. You also experience the emotions of people, you understand motivation, you understand the experience. This is the thing that cuts through with a drama audience as opposed to documentary. What do you hope viewers will take away from this series? My hope is they'll take away an understanding of the evidence - how it was found, what that meant, and what the investigators did next. That way, when they next hear a questionable theory or claim about the bombing, they have a representation of the story founded in truth that they can then use as a basis to analyse what they're hearing going forward.
