A brand new Welsh-made, true crime drama is coming to BBC One this May, Steeltown Murders. Set in both the 1970s and early 2000s, Steeltown Murders is an account of how three murders in south Wales were solved almost 30 years after they had been committed.
The drama has been written by Ed Whitmore, who's already brought us real-life crime dramas - Manhunt with Martin Clunes and Rillington Place - and is made by Severn Screen, the company behind The Pembrokeshire Murders and Hidden/Craith.
Lead star of the drama, Philip Glenister, plays DCI Paul Bethell and the actor summed up what it was like playing a real-life policeman whose laser focus led to the crime being solved. He said: "What came across was this dogged determination to bring some kind of conclusion or some answers for the families and for himself. And so when we started actually shooting and filming, I didn't really think I'm playing a real guy, the script was so well constructed by Ed that I didn't have to think too much about that. I just played the scenes and played the script as truthfully and as best to one's ability.”
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When is Steeltown Murders on TV and how many episodes?
The drama makes its debut on Monday, May 15 at 9pm on BBC One. The subsequent episodes will air on May, 22, May 29 and June 5 in the same timeslot. All the episodes will be available to stream, though, on iPlayer after the first episode airs on May 15. There are four episodes in total.
What's Steeltown Murders about?
The drama centres on the hunt to catch the killer of three young women in the Port Talbot area and the remarkable story of how - in the first case of its kind - the mystery was solved almost 30 years later using pioneering DNA evidence.
In September 1973, teenage factory workers Geraldine Hughes and Pauline Floyd left the Top Rank nightclub in Swansea together to try hitching a lift home. But they'd never reach their destination. Instead their bodes were discovered the next day dumped in Neath Port Talbot woodland having been raped and strangled. It was a hideous crime which left two families in mourning and an entire community in fear of where its perpetrator might strike next.
The resulting search for the culprit, Wales' very first documented serial killer, ended up becoming one of the longest-running murder hunts in this country's history. Indeed it would take 30 years before officers finally unmasked the a man who'd come to be known as The Saturday Night Strangler - and whom, it was discovered, was responsible for a third death.
Who's in the cast of Steeltown Murders?
Starring Philip Glenister from Life on Mars as DCI Paul Bethell and Gavin & Stacey's Steffan Rhodri as Phil ‘Bach’ Rees, the story will follow two timelines, the early 1970s and early 2000s, and the younger versions of the detectives are played by Scott Arthur (Good Omens, Borg McEnroe) and Siôn Alun Davies (The Sandman, Hidden).
Also featuring in the cast are: Keith Allen, Priyanga Burford, Sharon Morgan, Nia Roberts, Amy Morgan, Matthew Gravelle, Gareth John Bale, Elinor Crawley, Kriss Dosanjh, Oliver Ryan and Dyfan Dwyfor.
Where was the drama filmed?
Made on location in and around the real areas the crimes took place, Steeltown Murders used the M4 corridor including Port Talbot, Burry Port, Llandarcy and the Neath Valley. A number of sets were built in the Dragon Studios facility in Pencoed and the production also filmed at Swansea Bay studios.
Steeltown Murders also filmed in some well-known South Walian landmarks such as the Kardomah Café in Swansea, the Naval Club in Sandfields and The Royal British Legion Club in Port Talbot.
What have the show's makers said about filming the real-life drama?
The four-part miniseries was filmed in and around Port Talbot and was written by Ed Whitmore (Manhunt, Safe House) and made by Severn Screen (The Pembrokeshire Murders, Hidden/Craith). We spoke to producer Hannah Thomas and Ed, ahead of the airing about making the factual drama, which is set in both 1973 and the early 2000s and centres on the hunt to catch the killer of three young women in the Port Talbot area and the remarkable story of how - in the first case of its kind - the mystery was solved almost 30 years later using pioneering DNA evidence.
On making a real-life crime drama, Ed spoke about the thought process that goes on when putting the series together, he said: “I think you always have reservations, but you go through a process of asking yourself ‘why do you want to tell this true story?’
“I think it's probably true of any true story. It could be true of a war story, it could be true of a crime story, but especially stories where bad things have happened. And you have to ask yourself, why are you telling the story? And if you convince yourself that there's good reason to tell it you just have to do that job with as much integrity and sensitivity as you can muster. And I think we definitely try to do that every step of the way with this project.”
Hannah added that at the core of telling the story was the forensic-level research done into the project, which shows how developments in DNA helped answer the question of who murdered Pauline and Geraldine, as well as Sandra, three decades later.
“We worked with the actual police who were on the case with Paul Bethell and Phil Rees, who were there in the '70ss and in the noughties when Operation Magnum (the name of the operation that reopened the cases) started and they were just a brilliant source of information and guidance for us.”
Hannah went on to say that there was an extra layer of caution, care and meticulousness when making the drama because they were filming a Welsh story in Wales and are a Welsh production compay. The show was also filmed in the area where the murders took place all those years ago.
She added: “It isn't arm's length. It was really, really close to home. So we were very, very cautious and just meticulous in our research, really, and trying to, at every stage, do justice to the three girls who lost their lives. Because we'd met with the families, we were very aware of the reality of what had happened and what they'd gone through.
“So that basically was something we balanced at every stage. And Ed did so magnificently, just balancing kind of that drive to tell a really compelling story whilst being really mindful of people's grief and that it's actually happened.”
Ed added that it was Paul Bethell’s dogged determination that was inspiring to him when writing the dual-era drama. He said: “It was Paul’s absolute determination and tenacity in the face of overwhelming odds, in the sense that they had the killer's DNA, but he wasn't on the database, which feels like game over.
“And he would not accept that. He would not accept it as game over. The tenacity and the determination and the spirit that he showed to overcome that massive hurdle of the DNA not being on the database. And how do you go about finding the killer in a community almost 30 years later with lots of kind of issues and hostilities stemming from the original case? I felt fundamentally, that was the story worth telling.”
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