The Bombing of Pan Am 103 dramatizes the Lockerbie terrorist attack and the investigation that followed to uncover the truth.
The real-life story of the UK’s deadliest terror attack and the joint UK-US investigation, The Bombing of Pan Am 103 airs on BBC every Sunday and Monday for three weeks starting from May 18. Viewers outside the UK can watch it using a VPN.
The BBC’s new drama The Bombing of Pan Am 103 isn’t “a story about one hero,” according to the cast. Instead, it highlights the combined efforts of the police, Lockerbie residents, and people across the globe to identify those responsible for the attack.
On December 21, 1988, Pan Am Flight 103 exploded over Lockerbie, Scotland, in a terrorist attack that killed all 243 passengers, 16 crew members, and 11 local residents. It remains the deadliest terrorist attack in UK history, with investigations still ongoing. The series delves into the tragedy and the aftermath that followed.
While Sky’s drama Lockerbie: A Search for Truth centers on activist Jim Swire’s personal quest for answers after losing his daughter in the bombing, the BBC’s version takes a broader perspective. It shines a light on the efforts of numerous detectives from both the UK and the US, as well as the unity shown by the local community in the aftermath of the tragedy.
Reflecting on the BBC drama’s impact, actor Eddie Marsan shared his thoughts:
I thought what was so beautiful about it was a story of a collective response to a trauma. The way the women of Lockerbie wash their clothes, the detectives and the way the team solved it — It’s not a story about one hero. It’s about a community, having a collective, people having a heroic response, which I loved.
Marsan plays FBI agent Tom Thurman, an explosives examiner who played a key role in piecing together vital clues during the investigation. Speaking about the role, he added:
When I met Tom, he’s such a fascinating man. He’s got a twinkle in his eye, he loves to solve puzzles, and he was just a brilliant character to play.
I thought I couldn’t out Scottish Peter Mullan, so I will become the guy from Kentucky with the twinkle in his eye instead.
The six-part series was created by Adam Morane-Griffiths, who developed the concept after conducting in-depth research on the Lockerbie bombing for his documentary work. Through this research, he realised the story could also be effectively told as a drama, which led to the creation of the BBC series.
He had thousands of hours of interviews with all of the lead detectives in the case, he had access to Richard Marquise, played by Patrick J Adams, in the series.
Executive producer Simon Heath explained
I think when we first pitched the project and tried to get off the ground what we came up against was that a lot of places would like it to be the story of this one super cop who somehow solved everything and pieced together the truth alone. And it became obvious very quickly that that’s not really what the story was.
He continued
Heath recalled an image shared by Morane-Griffiths early in the process:
I remember a an early image Adam showed me which really stayed with me, a really powerful image was in Longtown in this warehouse where they’d laid out all the plane parts… and there was something about all those puzzle pieces hung up there that spoke to the story.
I think a mosaic approach seemed appropriate in a way, and we wanted to look at some of the bigger investigative pieces but also some of the more personal fragments, the family stories, the stories of the Ladies of Lockerbie in the community. It seemed to us, I think, that all of those stories spoke to the work of piecing together what [happened].
Director Michael Keillor emphasized that the focus was always on honoring those affected by the tragedy:
I think the first thing with a real story like this is people involved, the families of the victims who we met prior to pre production, that was front of mind, But everything we did right through the entire shoot, even when we were shooting as well, we were very mindful of where we were shooting.
he explained
Source: Yahoo UK