Sherwood drama explores real-life Line of Duty-style undercover ops

By Lidia Molina-Whyte

Published: Tuesday, 07 June 2022 at 12:00 am

New BBC drama Sherwood is inspired by two real manhunts that took place simultaneously in 2004 Nottingham, unearthing tensions that dated back to the ’80s miner strikes.

Written by Quiz’s James Graham, who grew up in a “red wall” town in the area, the six-parter will also delve into the Met’s deployment of so-called spy cops.

These undercover officers, however, weren’t infiltrating terrorist organisations but real-life communities. David Morrissey, who plays DCS Ian St Clair in the show, discussed the “outrageous” nature of these ‘spy cops’ during a chat with Radio Times magazine.

“It’s important for me to play the individual but when they start to uncover things about ‘spy cops’, Ian is just as thrown as anybody else,” he said when asked how he thought police were represented in the drama.

He added: “We’ve seen undercover operations within criminal and terrorist organisations in dramas like Line of Duty.

“But the idea that there were undercover officers inside legal organisations eavesdropping on conversations, feeding back information and sometimes having relationships with people without telling them who they really were, is outrageous. And it’s something that we need to really look at, right here, right now.”

The real manhunts of Robert Boyer, who had killed ex-miner Keith Frogson before fleeing to the woods, and Terry Rodgers, who had killed his daughter Chanel and also fled to the same woods, provide the backdrop for this exploration of a fractured community – exploring the Met’s response to the incidents too.

You can read the full feature on Sherwood in this issue of Radio Times magazine, on sale now.