The Salisbury poisoning is uncovered

In 2018, Salisbury hit the headlines when former spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia were poisoned.

They both eventually recovered, but a local woman, Dawn Sturgess, lost her life after she became contaminated by a nerve agent in a perfume bottle found by her boyfriend.

These shocking events only took place two years ago, but viewers may still be surprised at just how topical The Salisbury Poisonings, which stars Anne-Marie Duff, Rafe Spall and MyAnna Buring and is showing across three consecutive evenings, feels.

Writers Adam Patterson and Declan Lawn say: “At the heart of our retelling of the events that occurred in Salisbury in 2018, is a story about the internal mechanisms of a public health crisis response.

“It follows the work of a public servant called Tracy Daszkiewicz, the Director of Public Health of Wiltshire Council, as she works with colleagues to try to combat a lethal and invisible enemy that has appeared out of nowhere.”

They add: “The public health response team of which Tracy is a part instigates a lockdown. They close a local economy. They set up an elaborate system of contact tracing and testing. They source and distribute Personal Protective Equipment for use on the frontlines. And they deal, every day, with a terrified and frustrated public.”

If that all sounds oddly familiar, it’s not lost on Patterson and Lawn: “Naturally, we have watched the recent events around COVID-19 with fascination, because there are so many resonances with the story we tell in Salisbury. Many of the things we observed there have subsequently played out across the country.”

But it’s not all about the parallels with current events. Anne-Marie Duff, who plays Tracy Daszkiewicz, is also glad that the drama puts the spotlight back on Salisbury and reminds us of the seriousness of the incident, which she fears have been overshadowed by an infamous interview with two men claiming to be suspects in the case, who said they had visited the city to see its cathedral.

She says: “If you talk to anyone about what happened in Salisbury, they’ll immediately refer to (and sometimes laugh at) the cathedral comments. You forget about the collateral damage in terms of human lives and how severe it was. And it certainly wasn’t a joke or something to laugh about if you live there.

“It’s great that we get to explain that terror to people and how close we came to something pretty ghastly. As well as how hard people worked and the goodness of people.”

In the opening episode, the Skripals are discovered unconscious on a park bench and taken to hospital. While doctors try to identify the source of their illness, DS Nick Bailey (Spall) decides to investigate the Skripals’ home, but soon after returning to work he begins to feel ill.

Meanwhile, Tracy Daszkiewicz, Director of Public Health for Wiltshire Council, is called into an emergency meeting, where she starts to realise the scale of the potential crisis, while Dawn Sturgess (Buring) is annoyed at herself for missing a trip to the playground with her daughter.

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