‘The Gold’: Hugh Bonneville, Jack Lowden, Charlotte Spencer, Dominic Cooper, Sean Harris Among Cast For BBC & Paramount+ Series; Oscar Winner Aneil Karia To Direct

Andreas Wiseman
·3 min read

EXCLUSIVE: The BBC and Paramount+ have set cast for new drama series The Gold, which quietly began filming this month in London, we can reveal.

Starring will be Hugh Bonneville (Downton Abbey), Jack Lowden (Small Axe: Mangrove), Dominic Cooper (The Preacher), Charlotte Spencer (Cinderella), Tom Cullen (Black Mirror), Emun Elliott (Old), Sean Harris (Mission: Impossible), Ellora Torchia (Midsommar) and Stefanie Martini (The Last Kingdom).

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Inspired by the true story of the UK’s iconic Brink’s-Mat robbery and the decades-long chain of events that followed, The Gold dramatizes the country’s “crime of the century” across six episodes for BBC One and Paramount+.

Written by Neil Forsyth (Guilt), we can also reveal that the project will be directed by recent Oscar winner Aneil Karia (The Long Goodbye) along with Lawrence Gough (Misfits).

Set on November 26, 1983, the series will chart how 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 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 series is a co-production between Tannadice Pictures and VIS, Paramount’s international studio division. The six-episode hourlong series was commissioned by Piers Wenger, Director of BBC Drama, and Chief Content Officer Charlotte Moore.

The series will premiere in the UK on BBC One and BBC iPlayer and then be made available on Paramount+ in the U.S. and all international markets where the service is available.

The Gold is the first commission from Tannadice Pictures, the joint venture set up by Neil Forsyth and Objective Fiction, which is owned by All3Media Company.

Tommy Bulfin, BBC Commissioning Editor, said: “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.”

Executive producer Ben Farrell added, “Tannadice Pictures are excited to be working on their debut drama with such an incredible ensemble cast alongside the BBC and Paramount+ to tell, for the first time, the full, immersive, thrilling story of the Brink’s-Mat gold crime.”

Kate Laffey, Co-Managing Director of VIS, commented, “The Gold is a captivating story of one of the most remarkable events in British Criminal history, and we look forward to bringing this story to life for Paramount+ and BBC audiences around the world.”

Bulfin will executive produce for the BBC; Forsyth and Farrell for Tannadice Pictures; and Kate Laffey and Claire Sowerby-Sheppard for VIS. Charlie Leech will produce.

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