The Accident: Interview with writer Jack Thorne
Category: InterviewWhat is The Accident about?
It’s about a community struggling in the aftermath of an industrial accident that leads to eight children and one man being killed.
Is it based on any real accidents?
No but we spent a long time researching everything and constructing an accident that felt real which enabled our drama to do everything it needed to do. We looked into Grenfell and Aberfan and others, we had them all in front of us so Philip’s [Adrian Scarborough’s] entire list and the extraordinary thing we found was that none of them had led to anyone being in jail which was an incredible statistic.
Why was this an area of interest for you?
I was horrified as I think the whole country was that Grenfell happened in a country as developed and seemingly as rich as ours. I then grew progressively more horrified when the cladding wasn’t immediately removed from all the flats and when you read stories about either the residents themselves not being rehoused or other residents being stuck at the top of a tower block absolutely terrified every night because they had the cladding and they didn’t have the money to remove it and we’re still not removing that cladding. Current statistics suggest that if we continue removing cladding at the current rate which seemingly would be the fastest it should move with the pressure of Grenfell behind it we wouldn’t have it all off until 2030, that’s extraordinary and completely unacceptable. I think drama is an incredible devise for focusing minds, when it does it right and I would love The Accident to focus minds a little bit.
Why did you decide to set it in Wales?
Two reasons, I’m half Welsh, my dad was born in Fishguard and most of my family including myself have lived in Wales at some point, my sister lives there now, my aunt and my other sister was an adviser to the Welsh Assembly so I’ve spend a lot of my life in and around Wales. Those valley towns have been decimated by the industrial changes we have had in the last 30 years and there is no industry left. So I tried to think of an area where investment would be encouraged to a degree that would allow us to tell the story that we wanted to tell. There are of course lots of areas in the UK that could of worked for that but wales felt somehow right and those valley towns are a) so beautiful and b) so economically deprived I thought it would be an interesting theme to explore. The other reason is I’ve just done two shows Kiri and His Dark Materials which used Welsh government funds and neither of them have a lot of welsh people in them and I love the Welsh culture and I love Welsh actors and I thought it was an opportunity to get them in the show.
What did you do by way of research?
Alex Kazamia who is the brilliant script editor and I toured around meeting various health and safety executives and lawyers. The most important thing was to get the crime right, as soon as we got that we could build on everything else. We spoke to councillors and people about other facets of the show but the main thing we did was concentrate on the crime itself and getting that right, and that meant understanding an awful lot of stuff. I understand about 40% of it, Alex understands 150%, Alex is extraordinary, if you cut his head off and tipped his brain out it would probably bounce steel because he has spent so long thinking about steel for the show for which reasons will become clear as the show goes on.
Did you spend time on set during the shoot?
Very little, I don’t really like being on set. Actually, I think I cause more problems than I solve. Sandra it was clear from the first day’s rushes had such an understanding of the story, the idea that I could help her in any way wasn’t true. I was in constant communication with her and Mo our producer.
Do you do any rewrites once shooting has started?
Yes, we have the most phenomenal cast in the show and they took real responsibility for their characters. They had a real sense of ownership of their characters and so I heard quite a lot from Sidse who was going maybe this would be more appropriate, I like this, I don’t trust her when she does this so that was really useful and the other thing was you were getting the rushes back and the rushes were telling you what was happening. So for instance Mark and Sarah their whole relationship was entirely different to the one that I had in my head. The way that they physically were around each other, the joy and the love that they found, so I was responding to that and rewriting on the basis of that. So both things getting responses from the actors but also just learning from the decisions they were making meant that we were changing scripts.
Did you have anyone in mind when you were writing?
There’s two actors that return in this show that have been in earlier bits of the trilogy. One is Mark Lewis Jones and the other is Sarah Lancashire and they return for completely different reasons. Actually, what was in my head was Gerry was going to come back once we finished National Treasure. Gerry the character Mark played was so interesting and the way he did it was so brilliant that I’d love him to return in The Accident and if Sarah had turned us down we were going to make that happen. When Sarah said yes we quickly rewrote the part and made it very different, that’s Philip’s part that Adrian Scarborough plays. I just couldn’t keep Sarah out of my head, she is such a phenomenal actor and did such a phenomenal job in Kiri and I was desperate to work with her again and this felt like the right forum. I know how much social responsibility means to Sarah, I knew she would be interested in this because of that, I knew how thoughtful she was and I just wanted her to be a partner on this. I wrote it with her in mind and once it was finished I sent it to her and held my breath and thankfully she said yes. I also wrote it with Genevieve Barr in mind. I think Genevieve is one of the greatest actors in the UK, I think she can do almost anything and that was a decision on my part that she needs to be in this and I’m going to write a part for her as I am desperately upset that she hasn’t become a superstar yet. I’m absolutely certain she will do but it might take a bit longer but hopefully this can be part of it. The last actor I was this certain of that to be true was Phoebe Waller-Bridge.
This is the final instalment in the trilogy, how is it different and similar to National Treasure and Kiri?
All of them are different and the reason they are different is they are telling very, very different stories. In all of them it’s a central person that takes you through it, with National Treasure its Marie and you’re in her head and I think her coolness of touch is reflected through the whole show. Miriam is scruffy and a bit of a mess in Kiri and the show has got that scruffy, warm, gentle quality. You feel the fear of Polly all the way through The Accident and you feel her trepidation in the way that Sandra has told the story, so that’s how they are different. How they are the same is that they are both written by the same guy and they are all trying to be quite authorial and specific. They all enjoy a long scene every now and then and they all try and tell a story about where we are as people, about blame, blame culture, justice and the mess we are in.