A new drama based around two murders in Nottinghamshire is set to hit TV screens later this month. BBC One's Sherwood will be based around two brutal murders which took place near the village of Annesley Woodhouse back in 2004.
The show stars David Morrissey, Robert Glenister and Lesley Manville and is written by James Graham, a playwright who grew up in the village and has written numerous other dramas such as Quiz, Coalition and Brexit: The Uncivil War. It's worth pointing out that Sherwood is a fictional crime drama, but it has been inspired by two tragic events which both took place within weeks of each other 18 years ago.
In July of that year, Robert Boyer had shot ex-miner Keith 'Froggy' Frogson with a crossbow on his doorstep, before hacking him to death with a sword and setting fire to his home - with his victim's daughter and her husband still inside. Later that month, Terry Rodgers was living in his daughter Chanel's home in Huthwaite when he shot her four times, just weeks after her wedding.
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The two killers fled into woodland near Annesley Woodhouse, both remaining at large for weeks while police tried to hunt them down. The search for Rodgers involved a team of more than 450 officers from forces across the UK, cost more than £1.5m, and led to a desperate community appeal to find him with "wanted" posters pasted to lamp-posts and in shop windows.
Rodgers eluded police for nearly three weeks after constructing a shelter in the woods and was was finally found on August 16, the day after Boyer had been discovered.
Rodgers, 55, admitted the manslaughter of his newly-wed daughter Chanel on the grounds of diminished responsibility, but denied her murder. However, prosecutors refused to accept his plea, and a murder trial was set for March 6, 2006, but he went on hunger strike and died in February 2006. He never disclosed why he killed her.
Boyer, 42, later pleaded guilty to the manslaughter of Keith Frogson and at Nottingham Crown Court was given an indefinite hospital order. On the night of the killing, he waited for Mr Frogson to return from the pub, shot him with the crossbow and then attacked him with the sword. He had mental health problems and wrongly believed that Mr Frogson was out to get him.
When will it be on?
The show will air on BBC One at 9pm on Monday, June 13 and will be a six-part series. The second episode will air a day later, on Tuesday, June 14, according to the BBC website - all episodes will be around an hour long. Filming started during the summer of 2021. It will follow two police officers - one from the local force and one from the Met Police - as they try to solve two "shocking and unexpected" murders.
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A description of the show reads: "Inspired in part by real events, set in a Nottinghamshire mining village at the heart of Sherwood lie two shocking and unexpected killings that shatter an already fractured community and spark a massive manhunt.
"As suspicion and antipathy build - both between lifelong neighbours and towards the police forces who descend on the town - the tragic killings threaten to inflame historic divisions sparked during the miners' strike three decades before.
"Sherwood is at once a compelling, contemporary crime drama that explores for the first time the controversial deployment of so-called ‘spycops’ around Britain, and a distinctly human story of a community forced to re-examine the terrible events of decades ago, for which it still bears the scars."
Before the series airs to the public, there will be a screening event taking place at the Broadway Cinema in Nottingham on Monday, June 6. Nottinghamshire Live recently went out to the village of Annesley Woodhouse to speak to local residents there about their memories of the two killings and their thoughts on the upcoming BBC show.
Episodes of the show will also be available on BBC Iplayer.
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