Latest news with #NeilForsyth
BBC News
13-06-2025
- Entertainment
- BBC News
Turning the Brink's-Mat heist into dramatic gold
How do you tell a story involving dozens of people and an international conspiracy in just 12 episodes?That was the challenge writer Neil Forsyth faced when adapting the story of the Brink's-Mat heist - one of Britain's biggest robberies when £26 million worth of gold, diamonds and cash was 26 November 1983, a group of men dressed in security uniforms broke into a warehouse just outside of London's Heathrow Airport, hoping to find large sums of foreign currency. Instead, they found 6,800 gold sees Brink's-Mat as "the peak of traditional British crime - a bunch of South London robbers pulling off the biggest heist in [British] history.""Equally, it was the end of an era. The original robbers lacked the means to manage the proceeds, so a new breed of criminals took over" - those who could turn stolen cash into "vast criminal enterprises."The story of the aftermath, along with a few theories, is told in the second series of The Gold, airing now on BBC One and the writer and actors in the series speak about what to expect, the importance of dramatic licence and the intriguing parts of the story that didn't make it to screen. Creative licence For Forsyth, a story of this scale required creative license - something that has been hotly debated in recent years with dramas like The Crown."People talk about creative licence in a pejorative way," he says, "and I think that's frankly bizarre. You're making a dramatisation – otherwise, why not make a documentary?"In dramatising the story, Forsyth streamlined timelines, combined real-life figures and adjusted events to fit the example of compositing characters is Nicki Jennings (played by Charlotte Spencer), a blend of three female detectives who worked on the real case. This is key for Forsyth, who says: "Otherwise, you end up with two weak characters instead of one strong one."Forsyth's research uncovered that female detectives in the 1980s were often assigned surveillance roles because criminals didn't see them as a threat. "If they see a female walking down the road, they're less interested," he found the era's sexism key to crafting Jennings, giving her a relentless determination to prove herself. "Women of that time had a 'water off a duck's back' mentality," she says. 'People would think it was a terrible accent' Jennings's police partner, based on real officer Tony Brightwell, is played by Emun Elliott, who was encouraged to use his own Scottish accent rather than adopt Brightwell's English one."I'd rather actors concentrate on getting a great performance," says Forsyth, "and I think that 99% of the time that means trying to help the actor play it in their natural accent."Forsyth gave similar advice to Tom Cullen, who plays notorious conman John Palmer, transformed from a scrap metal dealer to one of Britain's most prolific surreal, real-life moment appears in series two: Palmer lands on The Sunday Times Rich List, with an equal wealth to Queen Elizabeth II. His wealth, however, draws the attention of dangerous figures in global organised crime."He had a very strange accent," Cullen says. "He grew up in Solihull in the West Midlands but lived most of his life in the West Country. If I did John's real accent, people would think it was a terrible Birmingham accent!" 'He talks about himself as the Lone Ranger' While series two continues following Palmer, Jennings and Brightwell, it also introduces detective Tony Lundy (Stephen Campbell Moore), Forsyth describes Lundy as a "brilliant thief-catcher" in his book on the the idea of the loose cannon cop might be a cliché in crime dramas, Campbell Moore believes Lundy actively modelled himself after fictional detectives. "He talks about himself as the Lone Ranger," he says. "He's a self-referring guy that watches cop shows on TV."If Forsyth had more episodes, he says he would have loved to explore other fascinating aspects of the story, like the insurance company's relentless pursuit of stolen funds, Palmer's infamous death and the time the lead investigator on the case, Brian Boyce (Hugh Bonneville), spent in Cyprus. "There's another 10 countries you could have gone to," Forsyth says. "Some incredible parts of the story just couldn't fit into six hours of television."
Irish Independent
10-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Irish Independent
Today's top TV and streaming choices: Ireland v Luxembourg, Broken Arrow and Call Her Alex
The Gold BBC One, 9pm Cast your mind back to February 2023 when, while we were still reeling from the final scenes of Happy Valley, the BBC launched a new — but very different — crime drama on an unsuspecting world. Entitled The Gold, it focused on the 1983 Brink's-Mat robbery, when six career criminals made off with gold bullion, diamonds and cash now worth £111million from a London warehouse facility. The six-parter proved to be gripping stuff, but there was heaps more of the story to tell. Thankfully, the BBC's bosses knew they were on to a winner, so immediately commissioned a second series — which is about to begin. 'I am delighted that we have been given the opportunity to tell the rest of the Brink's-Mat story,' states the programme's writer and executive producer Neil Forsyth. 'It sees the consequences of the robbery and its aftermath grow only more surprising, dramatic and far-reaching, both in Britain and around the world.' Hugh Bonneville, Charlotte Spencer, Emun Elliott, Tom Cullen and Stefanie Martini return, as does Jack Lowden as Kenneth Noye, one of the criminals involved, although he doesn't appear until the third episode. The story picks up after the conviction of some of those involved in the handling of the stolen goods as well as the theft itself. However, the police are convinced there's more to the story, leading them to investigate international money laundering and organised crime. Aistear an Amhráin RTÉ One, 7pm Sinéad Ní Churnáin takes viewers back to the early 1990s to investigate the origins of the song After All by The Frank and Walters, which was introduced to a whole new generation by its use in The Young Offenders. It's a heartwarming tale told with help from frontman Paul Linehan. Live International Football RTÉ2, 7.30pm Heimir Hallgrímsson's Republic of Ireland get set for a friendly against Luxembourg, a nation they have only lost once to in seven previous encounters since 1936. 24 Hours in A&E Channel 4, 9pm Tension mounts when a 92-year-old woman is rushed into Nottingham's Queen's Medical Centre, having been trapped under her own car. Another nonagenarian also arrives with a dangerously low heart rate, while a little boy needs help with an unusual problem. Broken Arrow Film4, 5.05pm Arguably the best of James Stewart's many Western collaborations with director Anthony Mann focuses on a former US Army scout's efforts to broker peace between settlers and an Apache chief. Call Her Alex Disney+, streaming now Back in October 2024, just less than a month before the election, Kamala Harris went on the Call Her Daddy podcast. Her appearance on such a highly popularised new medium was meant to nail her bid for the presidency. Instead, we have Trump and Stephen Miller in the White House and lingering whimpers of 'Why didn't Kamala go on Joe Rogan instead?' Such retrospection is, unfortunately, futile at this point. So, instead, let's find out more about Alex Cooper and what it took to become the most influential female podcaster of a generation. Directed by Ry Russo-Young (Nuclear Family), this two-part docuseries follows Cooper from a shy Pennsylvania kid to a progressive sex-and-dating podcaster, evolving over six years into the CEO of a media empire. More than a success story, it's a portrait of a person creating a space where women feel heard (and their respective others in their life can glean some often-necessary pointers). The Survivors Netflix, streaming now We're mostly used to two types of Australian viewing: soaps and super-dry (to the point of cringe) comedy. This is different. The drama follows Kieran Elliott's life after two people drown in his hometown of Evelyn Bay, Australia. To top it off, a young girl also went missing. Returning with his family 15 years later, the simmering guilt resurfaces, especially when the body of a young woman is found on the beach… K.O. Netflix, streaming now No one does visceral city grit like the French. Bastien has lived as a recluse since accidentally killing his opponent Enzo in an MMA fight three years ago. Now, Enzo's widow tracks him down as, essentially, he owes her one. Her request? Find her missing teenage son. Tyler Perry's Straw Netflix, streaming now Between this and last month's release of She the People, Mr Tyler Perry is getting himself around. This offering, however, is far more stark than May's fare. Here, one mum's day unfurls as it goes from tricky to catastrophic. Pushed to the precipice by a world that seems indifferent to her plight (until they can livestream it), she soon gets attention when she unwittingly holds up a bank. The Orkney Assassin Prime Video, streaming now The Orkney Isles lie 130 miles north of Aberdeen. It's a peaceful place with a strong sense of community. In June 1994, however, Bangladeshi waiter Shamsuddin Mahmood was working at the lone curry house when a masked man fatally shot him. This documentary revisits one of Scotland's most extraordinary murder cases, examining racism, loyalty, and the impact of trauma decades later. Ocean with David Attenborough Disney+, streaming now The man who will never retire explores stunning ocean habitats, highlighting the challenges for marine-life recovery. The Astroworld Tragedy Netflix, streaming now On November 5, 2021, Travis Scott stepped on stage to perform at Astroworld, which ended in the deaths of 10 people. An exclusive look told from the perspective of the survivors, paramedics and staff who were at the centre of this tragedy.
Telegraph
09-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Telegraph
Everything the BBC gets wrong about The Gold as the heist thriller returns
When the first season of the Brink's-Mat heist thriller The Gold was broadcast in 2023, it depicted the true(ish) story of Britain's then largest ever heist in 1983, in which £26 million's worth of gold, diamonds and jewellery was stolen from Heathrow. The show ended with its lead villain Kenneth Noye convicted of conspiracy to handle stolen gold, but the realisation on the part of the police that they have only recovered half the treasure. A second series beckoned. As the new season of The Gold begins, there is a new central antagonist, in the form of the jeweller and gold dealer John Palmer (Tom Cullen), who was acquitted of any involvement in the robbery and has now established himself as a respectable businessman, selling timeshares to British holidaymakers. However, it becomes clear that the gold has been smelted down and turned into cash and the police resume their cat-and-mouse hunt for the malefactors, set against an international backdrop. The Gold's creator Neil Forsyth has always been upfront that the show has contained a generous helping of dramatic licence. Nonetheless, he has also suggested that 'the series is very much inspired by real events'. With this in mind – and given that many of the events throughout the second, and final, six-part instalment seem almost to defy belief – we delved into what's accurate historical recreation, and what's Forsyth's own invention. (Warning: comnt Was the remaining Brink's-Mat gold really hidden in tin mines in Cornwall? When it became clear that only half the Brink's-Mat gold had been recovered, excitable rumours began to spread about what had happened to the rest of it. It was suggested that it had been hidden everywhere from a builders' merchant in Hastings (which was excavated in 2001 after a tip-off) to, of all places, Bristol Rovers football ground. The fruitless search for it takes up a good proportion of the first episode of The Gold season two, as Boyce and his lieutenants are thwarted by the machinations of the various criminals, who duly melt down the gold and, with the connivance of crooked Hatton Garden jewellers, turn it into cash. The second stash of gold was never discovered by the police (or anyone else), so whatever happened to it is the inevitable source of speculation. However, the show suggests that the remaining gold bullion was hidden in an abandoned Cornish tin mine. Forsyth comments,'That came from one article the researcher Adam Fenn and I found in the Evening Standard from the 1980s which we decided to explore in the opening of series two. It's very exciting for me knowing that that's never been dramatised before, and it became a key part of our opening episode.' It may or may not be true, but it's certainly original. Is Tony Lundy a real person? There are many new figures who appear on both sides of the law in The Gold, but perhaps the most interesting is police detective Tony Lundy, played by Stephen Campbell Moore. Lundy is portrayed as a brilliant but morally complicated detective chief inspector who refuses to follow the relatively straightforward path that Boyce and the others go down in order to pursue their investigation. While many of the characters in the series are carefully drawn composites, Lundy is in fact a real detective superintendent. Long since retired, he's now resident in Spain: ironically, home to many of the villains that he spent his career attempting to put away. He retired in 1988 on the grounds of stress-induced ill-health, and continued to be a controversial figure for years afterwards. He was sufficiently well-known for the News of the World to publish an interview with him in 1994 entitled 'Bent or Brilliant?' If The Gold suggests that he is the former, there's still enough of the night about him, in Campbell Moore's nuanced performance, to leave doubts in both his colleagues' and the audience's mind. As Campbell Moore says, 'We meet him when he's at the very end of his career, he's hit an absolute brick wall. Then he's given a chance and in a way it's his dream job… I think he felt that it was very unjust that he was being treated like this by the force that he had served for such a long time.' Was the police enquiry really 'the longest and most expensive' in the Met's history? One of the running themes during both series of The Gold is the Met's Assistant Commissioner Gordan Stewart (Peter Davison) complaining vociferously about the cost and man hours of the ongoing Brink's-Mat investigation. In reality, the investigation did indeed drag on for decades. First, the police's search for the missing half of the gold was largely fruitless given that, as the show suggests, it was smelted down and reformed in untraceable fashion. Second, many of the villains involved in the heist absconded to countries that didn't have extradition treaties with Britain, including Spain – where the existing treaty expired in 1978, not to be renewed until 1985 – making attempts to remove or repatriate them nigh-on impossible. And finally, as with Lundy, there was the necessity of recruiting officers who not only had the skills needed but were also above suspicion. After all, there were considerable sums of illicit cash available for bribery purposes. Those recruited were generally ex-flying squad, an elite group of undercover officers hired both for their professionalism and ability to liaise with the criminal underworld without arousing suspicion. In the series, although Stewart's apparent aversion to Boyce's investigation is played up for dramatic purposes, the investigation was a protracted and costly process that lasted until 2001 – and therefore took 18 years from the initial heist – that became about the principle of recovering the gold or money as much as anything else. Who was John Palmer, really? John Palmer, as played by Tom Cullen, was a supporting figure in the first series of the show, and most significant as the robber who got away. Palmer, a West Country jewellery and bullion dealer, was acquitted at the Old Bailey after successfully claiming that he was unaware that the gold he was handling was stolen. When the second season starts, Palmer is apparently a successful businessman, whose Tenerife timeshare activities mean that he is to be found on the Sunday Times Rich List next to the Queen: a source of grave embarrassment for the Met, who are determined to nail him for his illegal activities. He therefore becomes the principal antagonist of the show. In reality, Palmer spent the 1990s a free man. In 1993, the High Court of Justice successfully applied for an injunction to freeze his assets, meaning that his extraordinary wealth (estimated at around £300 million at one point) could now be delved into more closely, and its origins properly analysed. Palmer, as The Gold suggests, remained a source of great interest for the international police, although his descent into cocaine-fuelled paranoia à la Henry Hill in Goodfellas is good old-fashioned dramatic invention, as are his suspiciously regular confrontations with Boyce. The real-life Palmer was convicted of fraud in 2001. He spent the next decade in and out of jail for various convictions. He was shot to death in 2015; two years later, a man volunteered to be interviewed about the crime. No-one, though, has been convicted of the killing. Is Douglas Baxter a real character? The most entertaining character on screen in the second series of The Gold is Joshua McGuire's self-righteous but corrupt financial advisor Douglas 'Dougie' Baxter, who becomes involved with various money launderers out of a mixture of greed and desperation. McGuire and Forsyth are having almost too much fun with Baxter, who keeps coming out with instantly quotable one-liners – 'I once asked for a Martini in a pub on the Isle of Man and the landlord came at me with a poker' – and if he really existed, he should be flattered (or horrified) by his presentation in the drama. In fact, Baxter is a composite, albeit all-too-believable, character: one link in the chain that is the international laundromat for dodgy cash. The presentation of the Isle of Man as a semi-corrupt tax haven where virtually every financial adviser is crooked may be broad, but the famously low-tax regime has certainly attracted some characters of dubious legality. Can the police really use the money from drug busts? When Stewart is moaning to Boyce about the costs of the investigation, the dogged detective suggests that, should the money be recovered from the criminals, it would then pass straight into the hands of the police force to offset the money spent on investigating them, as long as there might be some drug-related offence involved. Although this sounds like a particularly neat (or contrived) piece of dramatic invention, the Drug Trafficking Offences Act was a real piece of legislation that was introduced in 1986, as a result of Operation Julie: an attempt to recover the profits that were made from a major LSD-smuggling ring in the 1970s. The act was later replaced by the 1994 Drug Trafficking Act, which broadened the scope to suggest that a confiscation order of a defendant's assets might be made if they were found guilty of having received 'payment or any other reward' from drug-related activities. Therefore, while the original Brink's-Mat robbery had nothing to do with narcotics, by the time that the considerable sums of money being involved were being used to finance and facilitate international drug deals, it had inadvertently played right into the Met's hands. Did Kenneth Noye kill someone by accident in a road rage incident – or was it deliberate? The surprise reappearance of Jack Lowden's Kenneth Noye in Tenerife at the end of the show's third episode, asking a reluctant Palmer for help, was revealed in the programme's trailers, as otherwise it might have been a genuinely surprising twist. By the time that he re-enters the second series, Noye has been released on licence after serving eight years of his fourteen-year sentence for conspiracy charges, and promptly goes on the run after murdering a 21-year old motorist, Stephen Cameron, in what was widely reported as a road rage incident. The show implies that Noye had acted with deliberate intent. Noye, who is still alive – unlike many of the villains depicted in the show – was said to have been flattered by the casting of the charismatic Lowden in the first season; it will be interesting to see whether his reappearance leads to similar admiration. Are 'supergrasses' a real phenomenon? When the Comic Strip group released their comedy The Supergrass in 1985, in which a nobody boasts about being a successful drug smuggler and is mistaken for a police informant, the idea of the 'supergrass' was an unfamiliar one; so much so that they might have been believed to invent it. The 'grass' – or informant – has been a well-known feature of the legal system since the late 1930s, when the word was used to describe a police stooge; the expression came from the term 'snake in the grass'. But the term 'supergrass' first emerged in the early 1970s to denote someone whose knowledge might be able to crack open and convict whole criminal networks. But this idea was always more optimistic than anything else, and by around 1985, the term 'supergrass' had fallen into abeyance. The system was discontinued after a series of high-profile trials in Northern Ireland fell apart due to the 'bizarre, incredible and contradictory' statements of one such supergrass, and many of the informants' evidence was regarded as tainted. By the time that the second series of The Gold begins in the early 1990s, supergrasses were largely obsolete (although they would, of course, give their name to the Britpop band). Therefore, the late introduction of an old-school villain (who shall remain nameless here) who is secretly working for the police is a surprising throwback, as is the revelation of which of the central characters has been in charge of them. This epitomises the tense, at times compromised relationship between the police and criminals – and the blurred lines between the two – which becomes such a central feature of The Gold. The first season of the show was one of the most popular dramas on the BBC in the past few years, and there's no reason why the second instalment shouldn't recreate its success. But go in expecting dramatic invention, rather than documentary fact, and you won't be disappointed.
Daily Mail
08-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
CHRISTOPHER STEVENS reviews The Gold on BBC1: Gold, greed, booze... this caper has the hallmarks of a classic crime flick
The Gold (BBC Where would you hide £10 million in gold bars? You can't bury it in the back garden — that's the first place police will look. Lock-up garages are too risky. Those places are apt to get burgled . . . the problem with being a big-time crook these days is that there are so many petty thieves. I'd go for the Gothic option — an overgrown Victorian graveyard. Plenty of cities have them, with tombstones and cracked sarcophagi all at crazy angles, overgrown by ivy. Take a crowbar, prise a few open, and conceal the ingots with the coffins. Ingeniously creepy, don't you think? Neil Forsyth, writer of The Gold, has a different theory for what happened to the missing half of the Brink's-Mat bullion. As he told Nicole Lampert, in the Daily Mail's Weekend magazine, it's an idea that was floating around in the 1980s: one of the villains behind Britain's biggest heist simply hid his haul in a Cornish tin mine. That's the basis for this comedy-thriller's second series. Good luck to anyone who hasn't seen the first run, aired in 2023, because many characters return with no introductions, including Hugh Bonneville as the luckless Met detective DCS Brian Boyce. Hugh, doing a gruff South London accent, is never quite convincing playing a straight-as-a-die copper who aims to get results by twisting a few arms and wearing out a lot of shoe leather. He lacks stolidness. There's always an edge of irony in his voice, a knowingness that doesn't fully match his character. But he's on a losing wicket from the start, because all Forsyth's sympathies are with the robbers and their associates. The chief failing of the first series was its insistence on making them likeable, even lovable — when the truth is that men such as Kenneth Noye and John Palmer were obnoxious thugs. Noye, played by Jack Lowden, hasn't returned yet, but Palmer (Tom Cullen) takes a central role. This time, at least, we can see what a vicious man he is — conning retirees into buying worthless timeshares in Tenerife, and lashing out with increasing violence as his paranoia grows. The real entertainment comes from supporting roles, especially Joshua McGuire as a spitefully camp accountant who specialises in tax dodges, and Peter Davison as the wonderfully snobbish Met Commissioner. Stephen Campbell Moore is effortlessly watchable, too, as a bent copper who sees himself as the Lone Ranger. Forsyth's reverence for classic gangland flicks shone through in a closing sequence of smelting gold, bundles of cash, boozing and greed, all set to a soundtrack of electronic music. It recalled one of the great crime movies, Thief, starring James Caan. Sam Spruell plays Charlie Miller, the crafty wide boy who is landed with that tricky problem of stashing a ton-and-a-half of ingots somewhere safe. The Cornish mine is his masterplan. Personally, I wouldn't risk it. The Famous Five are bound to stumble across it on a holiday adventure. 'I say, you fellows — look what Timmy's found!'
The Herald Scotland
08-06-2025
- Entertainment
- The Herald Scotland
Review, The Gold, BBC1 - a sequel too far or on the money?
**** As every wrong 'un knows, returning to the scene of a crime is a major no-no. Yet here is Neil Forsyth, bold as you like, following his hit drama of two years ago with another dip into the Brink's-Mat gold robbery. Is he mad? In the hands of any other writer it could be a sequel too far. Fortunately, the creator of Bob Servant and Guilt has expertly blown the bloody doors off again, so at ease everyone. The first series focused on the robbery and the hunt for 'the gold'. It's always 'the gold'. The gold is a character in its own right, a siren luring men to their doom, and it is wildly entertaining to watch her at work. The second series is about the £13 million of gold that's still missing, and the dirty money that continues to wash through the system. It's back on the chain gang again for gentleman copper Brian Boyce (Hugh Bonneville), with not enough budget but plenty of chemistry and quips from the detective partnership of Tony and Nicki (Emun Elliot and Charlotte Spencer; worth a spin-off series on their own). Following the money was never going to be as exciting as watching the original heist, and so it proves. No one even breaks into a run until episode three (the whole series is on iPlayer now). Forsyth makes up for this lack of action by adding layers to his characters, some old, some new. Of the latter, Joshua McGuire is a standout as a dodgy lawyer operating from the Isle of Man. John Palmer (Tom Cullen), the country mouse who can't read or write but is worth millions, is in Tenerife selling timeshares and feeling the heat as other cowboys arrive. And Charlie Miller (Sam Spruell) proves to be a gangster with surprising depths. He does love a beautiful sunset, old Charlie. At times, Forsyth's villains seem a touch too clever and eloquent. While this makes for some great dialogue - there's an old lag's speech that's one for the ages - it is not always believable. Be assured, however, the mistake of the first series, making one of the "faces" out to be a charismatic, Robin Hood-type, is not repeated here. Add to this mix one of Forsyth's trademark poptastic soundtracks (Aztec Camera's Somewhere in My Heart anyone?), exotic locations and some very funny lines, and The Gold more than earns its keep. This is the sort of exhilarating, high-end short-run drama series that BBC Scotland and other commissioners see as the future, which is laudable. But there has clearly been some serious money spent. How many of these can BBC Scotland's coffers realistically run to? That remains a known unknown for now. Ditto where most of the Brink's-Mat money went. As one villain says, 'Loads of people got rich from that job but it weren't the six blokes in the van.' Behind every great fortune is a great crime, and behind that a tasty crime drama, as long as it's written by Neil Forsyth.
