The Salisbury Poisonings

I let this three-part BBC series pass me by when it aired over the summer of 2020, but its appearance on the Guardian's top 50 shows of the year led me to download it. Like much of the country, I remember the initial incident very well, but the secondary victim's story - as well as the specific response to the incident were interesting to learn about.

A Russian double agent, Sergei Skripal (Wayne Swann) and his daughter Yulia (Jill Winternitz) fall suddenly and violently ill on a park bench in the small English Cathedral City of Salisbury. When the identity of the victims become known, the police begin an immediate enquiry and Detective Nick Bailey (Rafe Spall) leads an investigation of the Skripal home. It's later discovered that the pair have been exposed to Novichok, a manmade and very lethal nerve agent and stringent efforts are made immediately to limit the potential exposure of the general public, led by Tracy Daszkiewicz (Anne Marie-Duff) the Director of Public safety for Wiltshire.

The docudrama really presents the details of the incident on quite an intimate scale. The Skripal's themselves are rarely seen and the alleged perpetrators only briefly in news footage, the 'why' of the attack is not explored. Instead we follow Nick Bailey through his exposure and reaction to the nerve agent, his time in hospital, the effect on his family, and then the survivors guilt he suffers. It's all nicely played by Rafe Spall and Annabel Scholey. We follow Tracy Daszkiewicz as she is pulled into the situation, sacrificing her family time to try and keep the city safe, often offering a lone argument for expanding safety measures against opposing government priorities. Then we follow the sad case of Dawn Sturgess, a mother played by Myanna Burning, whose boyfriend accidentally exposes her to the delivery mechanism for Novichok and who can't survive the dosage. We see the impact this has on her family.

Much of the macro story is going to be classified for quite a while still, so complaints about that not being there, whilst I agree would have made for a better show, are missing the point somewhat. I'd agree with the reviews that suggested that just two episodes and less repetition, particularly of the family lives, would have made for a better series, but performances are good across the board in what is occasionally a tough watch, about everyday heroism.

So to the one star reviewers, are you being paid to do them?

Let's start with ricpambon - well he has only submitted this one review, that should tell you something. He says that Dawn sprays the liquid on her wrist in the first episode, she doesn't, she may well spray something then but not from the Novichok bottle. The people involved were interviewed for the series and I would have though Charlie could have told them where he found the bottle so to say the BBC don't know is plainly ridiculous.

AnthonyVincentBruno - well is only contribution is a two line slag off of Marc Addy, did he steal your wife? No other constructive criticism, so why bother.

Smoochemail - well again the only review this person has submitted so I find that as suspect as the first one I mentioned. their erroneous comment that you don't recover from Novichok is laughable when four people quite obviously did!

pkeenor - again only this one review, how do you expect us to believe you?

dayeym - probably the only believable review, other reviews are mixed. Maybe it was too long for him but to say it's rubbish with no explanation other than it was too long isn't' right.

So to my opinion, well I used to live near Salisbury, moved abroad before this incident happened but still had family in the area when it did, still do. So i recognised a lot of the locations used, yes they did film in the city.

I thought all the cast were believable, yes even the fat bloke from the Tesco ads. When you saw the real people at the end you realised how well they were cast. As a previous reviewer stated Anne-Marie Duff was excellent and nice not to have a supermodel play the part, as the Yanks would have done. Rafe Spall well he is a chip off the old block isn't he! MyAnna Burning from Ripper Street, and more, proves what a versatile actor she is, born in Sweden, you wouldn't know it from the accent here. Then there is Annabel Scholey from The Split, I could go on, there wasn't a duff performance here,

The fact that the real protagonist are shown at the end proves they were all involved in the creation of this series. To say it was a misrepresentation of the facts is an insult those involved and particularly the family and memory of Dawn Sturgess, shame on you.

This event drew my attention when it happened and I eagerly followed this story, as I had once lived in Salisbury, but not this one. It is pleasing to see that the BBC made a mini-series of this dastardly deed and it certainly filled all the gaps, which were never disclosed in news bulletins.

The production is well done making a thrilling exposé of the happenings and aftermath. A dramatic event well worth seeing to realize that the world is still not a safe place to live in. This event took place just 2 years ago, but the investigation only concluded in 2019.

In the main I enjoyed this drama. My only problem with it is the problem I have with many TV dramas, and that is that it was overly dramatic and at times overacted. Too many scenes of Anne-Marie Duff and her obnoxious son which didn't drive the narrative beyond that she was working hard and wasn't home as much as usual. In fact there were too many scenes of character's home lives and not enough of the police investigation in general. The dialogue was at times unconvincing and unnatural too. I'm sure everyone who worked on the case at the time found it draining at times, but the writer turned up the misery on everyone's faces to 11 and for me that's just lazy and not at all like real life at all. They could have cut out about 1 hour of the over sentimental nonsense and made it a really good watch, but they didn't hence 7 stars from me.

I did enjoy learning the story, and the performances were fine. However, when I was done, I had questions about, Tracy, the public health director. She's our main character, but I really had no idea what her job entails. Maybe they could have added, at least a few, examples of Tracy performing some functions of the job. It was a disservice to the real life person portrayed because the only thing they showed was her distraught, stressed and void of confidence. She was overworked, but I never saw her work. She would show up somewhere and just looked wrecked. If her job was to show up and look wrecked at her job, she was excellent. As a bonus, when at home, she looked wrecked there too.