Colin Firth pictured among plane debris in Lockerbie drama
- Published
Firth plays campaigner and grieving father Dr Jim Swire in the five-part drama
Colin Firth has been pictured on the set of a new drama based around the Lockerbie bombing in Scotland.
He plays the role of grieving father Dr Jim Swire in the upcoming Sky series.
Dr Swire and wife Jane led the campaign for an inquiry into the bombing of Pan Am flight 103 on 21 December 1988 after their daughter Flora was among 270 people killed in the tragedy.
Firth, 63, was pictured on set walking among "debris" of the flight in Bathgate, West Lothian.
A total of 259 people, all 243 passengers and 16 crew, were killed in flight along with 11 people on the ground in the Dumfries and Galloway town.
It is the deadliest terror attack in British history.
The series is based on the book, The Lockerbie Bombing: A Father's Search For Justice by Dr Swire and Peter Biddulph.
The five-part series Lockerbie will explore Dr Swire's fight for action and being nominated as a spokesperson for the victims' families through the UK Families Flight 103 group, and look at the disaster and its aftermath.
Dr Swire told the BBC in December 2022 that he wanted a UN court set up, instead of the case being dealt with by the US or Scotland and has long wanted the evidence against the only man convicted of the attack - Abdelbaset al-Megrahi - to be reassessed.
Scottish playwright David Harrower, known for the play Blackbird, is the lead writer and Otto Bathurst, who won a Bafta for BBC period crime drama Peaky Blinders, is lead director.
Firth, who won an Academy Award and Bafta for playing George VI in The King's Speech in 2010, was pictured on set alongside other actors portraying police officers and soldiers.
The BBC and Netflix announced in July that they had commissioned World Productions to make a separate six-part drama about the bombing.
Novelist and screenwriter Jonathan Lee, who wrote High Dive, is lead writer and Michael Keillor, who worked on Line Of Duty, Roadkill and Chimerica, will direct.
US Lockerbie trial
Former Libyan intelligence officer Al-Megrahi was found guilty of 270 counts of murder by a panel of three Scottish judges, external, sitting at a special court set up at a former US military base, Camp Zeist, in the Netherlands in 2001 and was imprisoned in Scotland.
He was granted compassionate release in 2009 after being diagnosed with terminal cancer, external.
Megrahi returned to Libya where he died in 2012. His family, and some relatives of the bombing victims, believe he suffered a miscarriage of justice.
Appeals against his conviction have been rejected. Libyan Abu Agila Masud is alleged to have helped make the bomb.
He is to go on trial in the US in May 2025 facing three charges which he denies.