Under siege
THE CHALLENGES BRITAIN’S FACING IN COBRA S2…
THE BIG BANG(S)
Having just about steered the nation through a solar storm in the first series of Cobra, Conservative PM Robert Sutherland (Robert Carlyle) is already facing a reduced majority and a divided country when a Ukrainian oligarch is assassinated on British soil and a sunken munitions ship explodes, taking out the Kent coastline. With Sutherland piecing together a response, a cyberattack then hits the nation’s critical infrastructure, putting the nation on a collision course with global superpowers as the culprits are hunted. “You need a big disaster, but not one that gets cleaned up and goes away,” explains showrunner Ben Richards. “It has to have consequences and has to get worse. Ships can explode and suns can bombard the Earth, but what I’m really interested in is the degree to which you can maintain core values and a coherent society under tremendous stress.”
TROUBLES AT HOME
While Andrew Buchan’s resurgent Labour leader is making waves and the crises bring long-time rival Archie Glover-Morgan (David Haig) back into the fold, Sutherland’s biggest threat is his newest Home Secretary. “Joseph Obasi’s from a humble background,” explains Richard Pepple, who plays him. “He wants to change how the Conservatives are seen and how the country is run, without trying to step on anyone’s toes. He’s very clever in how he puts his ideas over and how he wants to steer the party. But does he have his eye on the top job? No doubt about it!”
BREAKING POINT
Sutherland’s rock-solid working relationship with chief of staff Anna Marshall (Victoria Hamilton) is shaken when the pressure starts to tell on them both. And as if that’s not enough, the questionable associations of Sutherland’s wife, Rachel (Lucy Cohu), begin to surface, making Sutherland’s paranoia mount. “If you push him too far, he’ll snap,” reckons Carlyle.
MR. FREEZE
Amid exploding helicopters and tsunamis, Richard Dormer threw himself into it more than most as Fraser Walker, the civil contingencies head and all-round troubleshooter who gets trapped in his vehicle after the explosion. “It was horrendous!” shudders Dormer. “They made a replica of my Land Rover, hollowed it out and put rubber and plastic in to stop it leaking, then filled it with gallons of freezing water. It was one of the hardest scenes I’ve ever had to film. Very claustrophobic, very cold – not much acting involved! I was pretty frightened.”
SCARE FARE
“Nobody does it quite like Ben,” laughs Hamilton. “He starts with a disaster that you think is the worst it could be, then it becomes a paranoid nightmare that takes us to the verge of World War 3. It’s a really frightening and precise study of where we are at the moment, that fake news can start to be spread through conspiracy theories on social media and people start to act in certain ways because of what they’re hearing. The pandemic has really sharpened that. Ben has a way of making you ask questions to which the answer is: yes. Could Russia poison our water supply and cut off our power? Yes, they could…” Gabriel Tate
COBRA S2 STARTS ON SKY ONE IN OCTOBER.