CRUDE AWAKENING
THE RIG The tide turns against an isolated, fracturing offshore crew…
1 THE RIG STARTS AS A WORKPLACE DRAMA…
Lethally dangerous, elemental and isolated: an oil rig is such an obvious crucible for drama that it’s surprising they haven’t been used on screen more often. “They’re a perfect contained setting,” agrees David Macpherson, first-time screenwriter and creator of Prime Video’s new six-parter The Rig. “And they include a cross section of society: of management from the company and of the crew, the interior and exterior people, the guys who get dirty and the guys who get to stay clean. It’s like a small town.”
2 …BEFORE GETTING WEIRDER
After scenes of hard graft, gallows humour, on-rig tensions and hints of the industry’s uncertain future, an impenetrable fog rolls in, cutting the rig off from the outside world and triggering a series of inexplicable, perhaps supernatural incidents. “I could have done a straight oil-rig story,” says Macpherson, who once worked for an environmental charity. “But I like stories with social resonance and impact – genre lets you come at issues without making it a lecture. Alien is a great reference – even if the alien didn’t arrive, I’d still watch those guys on the ship, bickering and fighting about the crap food.”
3 IT’S A FAMILY AFFAIR…
Macpherson was inspired to write the series by his father’s working life offshore. Such memories were familiar to star Martin Compston. “It seemed glamorous because my dad just disappeared to this place offshore,” the Line Of Duty star recalls. “Obviously it’s anything but that, but there’s a romantic side to working in the middle of nowhere, cut off from the world. The rigs are beautiful, incredible feats of engineering, but tinderboxes at times, too, technically and emotionally. It’s a very tight place to be if you don’t get on with somebody.”
4 …AND THE CAST IS A “SCOTTISH AVENGERS”
Appropriately for a story in part eulogising Scottish engineering, Compston’s comms officer is joined by Iain Glen as steady onsite manager Magnus, Stuart McQuarrie’s chef, Mark Bonnar’s rig foreman, Emun Elliott’s mechanic and Molly Vevers’ roustabout, alongside a sprinkling of familiar English and Welsh faces. Schitt’s Creek’s Emily Hampshire, meanwhile, represents the suits as a North American company rep.
5 IT’S FUELLED BY FOREBODING
With filming on a real rig a logistical impossibility during Covid, the crew set up in cavernous new Edinburgh studios First Stage: tall enough to winch in a helicopter (sans blades), broad enough to provide the necessary sense of scale (with a little bluescreen assistance) and handily near to Leith Docks for the waterborne scenes. But for all the spectacle, at the heart of The Rig is a warning. “Are we playing with the planet in a dangerous way?” ponders Glen. “It’s only after horrible disasters that humanity tends to wake up and think, ‘Maybe we shouldn’t have been doing that…’”
THE RIG LAUNCHES ON PRIME VIDEO ON 6 JANUARY.