Colin Firth to Star in Peacock, Sky Limited Series ‘Lockerbie’

Colin Firth (The King’s Speech, A Single Man, The Staircase) will star in the upcoming original limited event series Lockerbie about the December 1988 terrorist attack on Pan Am Flight 103 for Comcast’s Peacock and Sky.

In the attack, a Pan Am transatlantic flight from Frankfurt to Detroit was destroyed by a bomb 38 minutes after take-off while flying over the Scottish town of Lockerbie, killing all 243 passengers and 16 crew members. Parts of the aircraft crashed into a residential area, killing an additional 11 people.

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Firth will portray Dr. Jim Swire, who lost his daughter Flora in the event.

“In the wake of the disaster and his daughter Flora’s death, Dr. Jim Swire (Firth), is nominated spokesperson for the U.K. victims’ families, who have united to demand truth and justice,” says a plot description for the series. “Traveling across continents and political divides, Jim embarks on a relentless journey that not only jeopardizes his stability, family and life, but completely overturns his trust in the justice system. As the truth shifts under Jim’s feet, his view of the world is left forever sullied.”

The series, based on the book The Lockerbie Bombing: A Father’s Search for Justice by Swire and Peter Biddulph, along with other sources, is designed to explore events surrounding the disaster and its aftermath and provide “an intimate account of a man, a husband, and a father who risks everything in memory of his daughter and the unflinching pursuit of truth and justice,” the companies said.

The five-part series is a co-production between Carnival Films, which is part of Universal International Studios and Sky Studios. Scottish playwright David Harrower (Blackbird, Knives in Hens) will serve as the lead writer on the series, with Maryam Hamidi (Vigil) working as a guest writer on an episode. BAFTA Award-winning Otto Bathurst (Peaky Blinders, The Winter King) is the show’s lead director. Jim Loach (Save Me) will also direct an episode.

Production will start early this year. Gareth Neame and Nigel Marchant are serving as executive producers for Carnival, Sam Hoyle as executive producer for Sky Studios, with other executive producers including Harrower, Liz Trubridge, Jim Sheridan, Kirsten Sheridan and Oskar Slingerland. Brian Kaczynski is producer, and Hamidi also serves as associate producer.

Lockerbie will be available on Sky and its streaming service Now in the U.K., Ireland, Italy, Germany, Switzerland and Austria, and on Peacock in the U.S. NBCUniversal Global TV Distribution will handle international sales of the series.

Firth is represented by Independent Talent in the U.K., CAA in the U.S. and Prosper PR. Universal International Studios is a division of Universal Studio Group.

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