Can you give a recap of what happened in series one?
Series One of The Gold is very much driven by the robbery itself and the aftermath. It focused on how people were dealing with getting rid of the gold, smelting the gold and selling it back into the system. It also shows some of the primitive money laundering that came from that, the police chase of those that were involved with the robbery and those that were immediately involved in the aftermath.
How would you describe the second series of The Gold?
The second series of The Gold picks up from the first series when the police realise they were only ever chasing half of the gold. This series follows the second half of the Brink's-Mat gold and it's also a story of the consequences faced by several of our key characters across the entire show. I always saw The Gold as a two series show, following the two halves of the gold, so this will be the final series.
How has this series evolved from series one?
In the second half of The Gold there are certain similarities to the first series, in terms of the broad strokes of the story, but they're also very different in the places that the gold and the money went and the people that it brought into the story - so it's more expansive compared to series one. In this series, we go into some exciting new worlds - we go to the Isle of Man, the Caribbean, Spain and Tenerife (the latter three all filmed in Tenerife). These are all journeys that begin in South London, with the original Brink's-Mat robbers. The story travels from Britain around the world, while keeping that British heart to it, and in terms of the criminality we examine a new level of money laundering and professional crime. In this series, the journeys that our characters go on end far beyond their home bases and their home networks.
It's also unpredictable and surprising and that's what was exciting for me when we were researching the show as we would find these lovely little nuggets that I could extrapolate out into storylines. Often, this unearths stories that have not been widely reported or widely known and people that were not convicted for their crimes. For example, there's a whole storyline in the opening episode of this series, which is based around a theory that some of the gold was hidden in a tin mine in Cornwall. 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, and that is the kind of reward you get for putting in the research. It's very exciting for me knowing that that's never been dramatised before, and it became a key part of our opening episode.
What research did you do for this series and how close is the series to real life?
We do a huge amount of research with The Gold, but then we have to tell a cohesive version of a very complicated story, so of course creative licence is used for that and other reasons. But the series is very much inspired by real events.
This series sees some of the cast from series one return, but also some new faces. What can you tell us about the new characters for series two?
Some of the new characters this series include Tony Lundy (Stephen Campbell Moore) Douglas Baxter (Joshua McGuire) and Logan Campbell (Tom Hughes).
Douglas Baxter is a composite character inspired by some of those involved in the Brink's-Mat story. Baxter is an Isle of Man financial advisor who gets brought into the story by Charlie Miller and he ends up being part of an extensive money laundering chain that stretches all the way to the Caribbean. He’s a really interesting character in our show, and I think he’s brilliantly played by Joshua McGuire.
Logan Campbell is also a composite character inspired by some of those involved with the Brink's-Mat criminal enterprises, in this case - the laundering of a huge amount of money that was produced by the proceeds of the Brink's-Mat robbery. He was already criminally minded, laundering money for a South American drug cartel in the Caribbean. As a result, his involvement creates a very complicated and very dangerous turn in the Brink's-Mat story. For me, it was a wonderful find in the research and a really interesting aspect. You almost couldn’t get further away from the Brink’s-Mat Heathrow depot than the Caribbean, and having this well-respected member of the expat community that ended up laundering Brink’s-Mat money was fascinating.
The Brink's-Mat investigation, at the time, was the longest and most expensive investigation in Scotland Yard history. In the latter years, the team was depleted, and we represent that in our show where we really stripped back the police operation to our three main police characters - Brian Boyce (Hugh Bonneville), Tony Brightwell (Emun Elliott) and Nicki Jennings (Charlotte Spencer) - joined by the new arrival of Tony Lundy (Stephen Campbell Moore). Having that stripped back police operation gives it a real narrative purity, as they are bound together at that point and just have to see it to the end. I think they did so much brilliant detective work, but it was such a complicated case and they were learning as they went. That’s the other thing with Brink’s-Mat, the same as series one, they’re learning new forms of investigation as they go. They were having to form new alliances; they end up working with the DEA (Drug Enforcement Administration) in this series, for example. It was such a nimble fast-moving investigation. For me, that was a gift in terms of the energy it gives the show.
Why do you think The Gold series 2 is unmissable TV?
It’s a complicated story, The Gold, and I think it’s hopefully told with a bit of nuance and complexity. Series one seemed to land well, in terms of how it was received, and having those huge viewing figures which was just amazing.
I’ve never written something before that has that effect and a lot of the actors talked about hearing people talk about it on the tube and the bus and so on. It’s rare for a TV show to have that kind of impact these days and it was a lovely thing to be part of. I think we’ve told the story in a style and tone that feels unique and, for me as a writer, that has to be the aim. You want to write something with a voice and feel that you’ve told a story in a way that no-one else could have told it.