\n<\/p>\n
When the Scottish playwright David Harrower set out to script a TV adaptation of \u201cThe Lockerbie Bombing: A Father\u2019s Search for Justice\u201d \u2014 Jim Swire\u2019s skeptical book laying out who he believed was really responsible for the deadliest terrorist attack in British history \u2014 he had to ask himself: What if Swire was wrong?<\/p>\n
In 1988, Swire\u2019s daughter was one of 270 people killed in the bombing of an American jetliner, Pan Am Flight 103, the wreckage of which crashed in the remote Scottish town of Lockerbie. His book, co-written with Peter Biddulph, argues that Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi, a Libyan man convicted<\/a> over the bombing, was set up by his government, that his trial was effectively a sham, and that the entire investigation was cloaked in lies and coverups.<\/p>\n The book is driven by righteous certainty \u2014 which Harrower wanted to avoid onscreen.<\/p>\n \u201cSwire is such a dogged, driven figure, completely confident about what he believes in,\u201d Harrower said. But, he added, \u201cThere are other people in the world who believe the opposite of what he believes. So I couldn\u2019t make a drama without asking, \u2018What if all this is actually driven by grief?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cLockerbie: A Search for Truth<\/a>,\u201d now airing on Peacock, is about Swire\u2019s decades of campaigning and research, but the series \u201cis not a hagiographical treatment,\u201d Harrower said. Instead, the show is as much about the nature of obsession as it is about justice. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Like other paranoid thrillers including \u201cZodiac<\/a>\u201d or \u201cThe Insider<\/a>,\u201d the answers always seem slightly out of reach. Yet Colin Firth\u2019s Swire determinedly sticks with the case, even as people around him, including his wife Jane (Catherine McCormack), see the sense in moving on.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \u201cWe are very clear in this show that we don\u2019t hold a view, but we are telling Jim\u2019s story, and Jim\u2019s version of events,\u201d Gareth Neame, an executive producer on the series, said. \u201cHe has an opinion that he holds very strongly, but many others don\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n If there\u2019s one thing that the producers were sure about from the beginning, it was that they wanted to cast Firth, who they felt would best embody Swire\u2019s balance of self-doubt and determination, as well as his strong moral code. \u201cIt\u2019s very rare that you get your first choice,\u201d Nigel Marchant, another producer, said. \u201cIt\u2019s an absolutely brilliant, measured performance that encapsulates both a study of grief but also this great determination for the truth.\u201d<\/p>\n Firth met with Swire before production started, and said in an email that he was struck by Swire\u2019s \u201cbracing clarity and focus.\u201d He said he explained to Swire and his wife that \u201cit was in the nature of dramatic portrayal that they might not recognize themselves,\u201d and was impressed when they \u201cmade no attempt to impose any ideas or steer the portrayal.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n The series opens with the shock of the tragedy, as the ill-fated 747 explodes in midair and quite literally falls out of the sky. When the Swires hear the news, they are devastated, and the parents release torrents of outrage and grief \u2014 a bracing introduction to the characters and the show.<\/p>\n But as the story unfolds and the focus shifts to the aftermath, Swire throws himself into amateur detective work and protracted legal battles with the British government, perhaps avoiding the much harder work of mourning. The character is sympathetic \u2014 Firth is hard to dislike \u2014 but with an edge of peskiness.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Initially, the Pan Am bombing became an international diplomatic issue, with Western sanctions costing<\/a> Libya an estimated $30 billion, and the trial provoked a media frenzy \u2014 as did the later release, on compassionate grounds, of al-Megrahi, who died of cancer<\/a> in 2012. But Swire, now in his late 80s, has watched as the tragedy slowly faded from the popular imagination.<\/p>\n \u201cAs time went on, fewer and fewer people cared, or even knew about, the disaster,\u201d Firth said. Swire \u201cwas increasingly doubtful as to whether the full truth would ever be known in his lifetime,\u201d Firth added.<\/p>\n The creators of \u201cLockerbie\u201d also want to reignite public interest in the tragedy, and perhaps to inspire people to continue asking questions about who, exactly, was responsible for it. McCormack, who plays Swire\u2019s wife, said Swire had \u201cseemed very pleased that this has been made, because it\u2019s bringing it back into people\u2019s awareness again.\u201d She added, \u201cHe\u2019s been fighting this fight for so many years, and this is an opportunity again for him to kind of shine a light on it.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n For people who remember the Lockerbie bombing, it can be hard to believe that its memory has faded at all. \u201cThis is something that had, in various ways, a huge impact on all of us,\u201d Firth said. \u201cLockerbie shook everyone.\u201d<\/p>\n But while making the show, it also became clear to Firth that the world had moved on. \u201cWhen I thought back over my life in the three and a half decades since the crash \u2014 and all that had happened since \u2014 it really hit me how long Jim, his family and thousands of others, had carried this,\u201d Firth said. \u201cEvery minute spent of that time spent living with that loss.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n