The 2015 heist in London’s diamond district by a group of grizzled thieves is already the subject of multiple movie projects. Now ITV is giving the notorious caper the small-screen treatment by greenlighting drama series “Hatton Garden.”
The robbery is proving irresistible for film and TV producers, with Studiocanal’s “Night in Hatton Garden,” Ronnie Thompson’s “The Hatton Garden Job,” and Working Title also reportedly working up a project about the raid, in which a gang of retired petty criminals looted the contents of the Hatton Garden Safety Deposit Company.
ITV’s series will consist of four parts and comes from Jeff Pope, a writer who specializes in dramatizing real-life events.
Timothy Spall, Kenneth Cranham, and Brian F. O’Byrne will play the aging robbers. David Hayman, Alex Norton, Ian Puleston-Davies, Geoff Bell, and Nasser Memarzia will also star. Terry Winsor (“Essex Boys”) will co-write the series, and Paul Whittington (“Cilla”) will direct.
The show will follow the planning and execution of the robbery as well as the impact on the people who lost possessions and the police operation that ultimately saw most of the gang arrested.
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ITV head of drama Polly Hill commissioned the series. “Jeff is a master at bringing these true stories to screen, and these dramas have always been and continue to be an important part of ITV drama,” she said. “I think the audience will be fascinated by this story and Jeff’s compelling dramatization of it.”
“This is one of the most high-profile crimes of the last decade, and we wanted to understand what had happened – and why it had happened,” added Pope. “The research threw up some fascinating detail and blew away many of the misconceptions about this story. It was not about a bunch of ‘lovable old blokes.’ Many [safety deposit] box holders lost everything in the raid, and we will reflect this.”
Filming gets underway this month in London. ITV Studios is producing, with ITV Studios Global Entertainment selling the series internationally.
