BBC One’s The Trick debuts first look at Jason Watkins in conspiracy thriller

The 90-minute film stars Jason Watkins as Phil Jones – the climate scientist at the centre of 2009’s Climategate.

By Lauren Morris

Published: Tuesday, 17 August 2021 at 12:00 am

BBC One has teased The Trick – its upcoming film about the 2009 Climategate Scandal – with first-look pics of Jason Watkins, Jerome Flynn and Victoria Hamilton in character.

The 90-minute film, written by Welsh playwright Owen Sheers and premiering this Autumn, follows Philip Jones (Watkins), a climate scientist who became the victim of a cyber-crime which undermined his research into the existence of climate change.

In one of the images, Watkins is seen giving a presentation as the climate research head at the University of East Anglia, while in another, we see Hamilton as Jones’s wife Ruth, who supports her husband throughout the Climategate ordeal.

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Victoria Hamilton in The Trick
BBC

Another photo introduces Game of Thrones star Flynn as Neil Wallis, a former News of the World executive editor and managing director of Outside Organisation – the PR company leading University of East Anglia’s reputation management – and 1917’s George MacKay as Sam Bowen, Outside Organisation’s Director of Corporate.

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The star-studded drama is set to look at the “potentially devastating consequences to humanity from climate change denial and how a media storm undermined public confidence in the science,” according to the BBC.”The film also charts the unjustified persecution of Phil Jones and his wife Ruth’s fierce support of her husband the fight for the ultimate exoneration of himself and the science.”

Watkins, Hamilton, MacKay and Flynn are joined in the cast by Save Me‘s Adrian Edmondson, Hinterland’s Aneirin Hughes, The A Word’s Pooky Quesnel, The Pact’s Richard Elfyn, Finding Alice‘s Rhashan Stone, Hanna’s Justin Salinger, Line of Duty‘s Tara Divina and Time’s David Calder.

Filming for The Trick took place across Cardiff, London and Norfolk, with the 90-minute film arriving on BBC One and BBC iPlayer this Autumn.

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