Casting has been revealed for new BBC One drama The Gold.
Inspired by the true story of the Brink’s-Mat robbery, the series dramatises the ‘crime of the century’ across six episodes.
The drama will be written by Neil Forsyth (Guilt, Eric, Ernie & Me) and directed by Oscar-winning Aneil Karia (The Long Goodbye) along with Lawrence Gough (The Last Bus, Snatch, Misfits).
The cast will see Hugh Bonneville (Downton Abbey, Paddington 1 and 2) star alongside Jack Lowden (Small Axe: Mangrove, Slow Horses), Dominic Cooper (The Preacher, The Devil’s Double), Charlotte Spencer (The Duke, Cinderella), Tom Cullen (Becoming Elizabeth, Black Mirror), Emun Elliott (Guilt, Old), Sean Harris (Southcliffe, Mission: Impossible), Ellora Torchia (Ali and Ava, Midsommar) and Stefanie Martini (Prime Suspect, The Last Kingdom).
A teaser shares: “On the 26 November 1983, six armed men broke into the Brink’s-Mat security depot near London’s Heathrow Airport, and inadvertently stumbled across gold bullion worth £26m.
“What started as ‘a typical Old Kent Road armed robbery’ according to detectives at the time, became a seminal event in British criminal history, remarkable not only for the scale of the theft, at the time the biggest in world history, but for its wider legacy.
“The disposal of the bullion caused the birth of large-scale international money laundering, provided the dirty money that helped fuel the London Docklands property boom, united blue and white collar criminals and left controversy and murder in its wake.
“Inspired by extensive research and interviews with some of those involved in the events, The Gold is a pulsating dramatization which takes a journey into a 1980s world awash with cheap money and loosened morals to tell this extraordinary and epic story for the first time in its entirety.”
Daniel Ings (I Hate Suzi, Lovesick) also joins the cast alongside James Nelson-Joyce (Time, The Outlaws), Sophia La Porta (Four Weddings And A Funeral, Ripper Street), Dorothy Atkinson (Call The Midwife, Stonehouse), Adam Nagaitis (Red Rose, Chernobyl), Hadley Fraser (Gentleman Jack, Endeavour), Silas Carson (Dr Who, Strike), Sean Gilder (Sherwood, His Dark Materials), Nichola Burley (Behind Her Eyes, Lynn + Lucy), Amanda Drew (A Very British Scandal, Wednesday), Sam Spruell (Small Axe: Mangrove, the North Water), Frankie Wilson (Call The Midwife, House of the Dragon), Paul Thornley (Treadstone, Silent Witness), Dan Li (Vigil, The Girl Before), Chris Coghill (Slow Horses, The Bay), Micah Balfour (The Trial of Christine Keeler, Whitehouse Farm), Ruth Bradley (Ted Lasso, Guilt), and Peter Davison (All Creatures Great and Small, Doctor Who).
Tommy Bulfin, BBC Commissioning Editor, commented: “The fact that we have assembled such a talented and exciting ensemble cast is testament to Neil’s incisive interrogation of one of the most infamous robberies in British history and the remarkable events which came in its wake.
“And to have the brilliant Aneil Karia join fresh from his Oscar win is the icing on the cake. The BBC One audience are in for a real treat when this hits the screen.”
The Gold will premiere in the UK on BBC One and BBC iPlayer, and then be made available on Paramount+ in the US. A release date is to be announced.
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