Parsons Green Attack Forced BBC's Press to Cut Storyline
Star reveals story about tube bucket bomb was 'too close to reality'
The new BBC One drama series Press had to cut out a storyline about a terrorist bomb, following the attack by Ahmed Hassan on a District Line train in Parsons Green a year ago.
Actress Charlotte Riley, who stars as Holly Evans, Deputy News Editor at fictional newspaper The Herald, Holly Evan has revealed that an original story involving a ‘bucket bomb’ on the tube was shelved because it was too close to the real event, which caused 51 injuries among the passengers.
She said: " There were one or two storylines that we filmed that then actually happened in real life, so they didn’t make the cut.
"We couldn’t then use them because they were too close to reality."
Of the Parsons Green attack, she said: "We ended up cutting that out because it had literally just happened. There were others too. When things from the script kept happening in real life I thought ' ‘What is going on here?'
" That was quite fascinating. But it made me think the writer was a witch of some kind."
Press, starring Ben Chaplin, Charlotte Riley and Priyanga Burford, which began its run on Thursday, explores the fast-paced world and personal lives of the journalists working at two fictional national newspapers.
Ahmed Hassan, the 18 year-old Iraqi asylum seeker found guilty of planting the bomb on a District Line train on September 15 last year, was jailed for life on 23 March.
Altogether 51 people were injured when a fireball swept through the tube carriage, burning passengers’ skin, hair and clothing, or suffered crush injuries as people fell over each other while trying to escape.
September 7, 2018
