BEHIND CODE DOORS
THE UNDECLARED WAR Lester, Rylance and Pegg fight back against a cyberattack…
1 DREAD ALERT
A Bafta winner for Britz, The Government Inspector and Warriors, Peter Kosminsky has often explored the interplay between government, military and security services. His six-part thriller The Undeclared War investigates the opaque, ongoing cyberwar between nation states. “I knew there were cyberattacks taking place between Britain and America on one side and Russia on the other, but I didn’t realise the scale of it,” he says. “Given how interconnected almost every aspect of our lives is and how vulnerable that makes us, we should be more aware of how dangerous it is – I don’t think there’s anything we depict that isn’t being wargamed by security services right now. It’s a cautionary tale that depicts one worryingly possible future.”
2 STAR INTERN
Set during a cyberattack in the run-up to the 2024 general election, it focuses on Saara Parvan (Hannah Khalique-Brown), a student on work experience with GCHQ. Cast from almost 100 hopefuls, newcomer Khalique-Brown is in virtually every scene, but surrounded by veterans such as Adrian Lester as Britain’s first Black PM, regular Kosminsky collaborator Mark Rylance as a reactivated Cold War veteran, and most intriguingly, Simon Pegg as GCHQ’s Head of Operations – a straighter part than he usually takes. “You see a different side of Simon in this,” says Kosminsky. “But there’s a naturalism and sympathy common to all his roles. It’s an extraordinary performance, completely captivating, and I think people will be surprised.”
3 SHOW OF METAPHORS
Every cyberthriller must somehow bring the tech to visual life, and Kosminsky found a novel solution to depict Saara’s ‘Codeworld’. “When a computer prodigy like Saara looks at a page of code, she doesn’t see lines of text, numbers and symbols. She sees concepts, so I came up with visual metaphors: if she’s doing something boring, she’s in a courtyard, bouncing a tennis ball against the wall.” Other metaphors include a heist in miniature, swimming across a reservoir or rifling through a library.
4 ANONYMOUS TIPS
Filming began after three years of deep research, carried out anonymously. “We spread the net widely,” says Kosminsky. “We spoke to those from the commercial security sector, people who have worked government security, journalists, academics… They spoke openly because they knew they would never be quoted: the events are rooted in fact, but the characters are fictional.”
5 LIVE PARALLELS
Russia’s history of cyberwarfare, from its interventions in American and British elections, to the annexation of Crimea and the ongoing war in Ukraine, have only sharpened the themes of the series. “The stakes have risen significantly since we conceived and wrote the show, but the scenario hasn’t changed at all,” says Kosminsky. “The things we’re depicting are absolutely as relevant today, arguably more so, than they were prior to the war in Ukraine.”
THE UNDECLARED WAR IS COMING SOON TO CHANNEL 4 AND ALL 4.
‘It’s a cautionary tale that depicts one worryingly possible future’ PETER KOSMINSKY