CREATOR OF ARCTIC DRAMA FORTITUDE
The Sky Atlantic drama features a town at the edge of the world where bloody and gruesome murders, parasitic wasps and psychosis are commonplace.
But the inspiration comes from somewhere closer to home – Wishaw, in deepest, darkest Lanarkshire.
The show’s creator and writer, Simon Donald, grew up in Coltness in the town. And wanting to get out into the world fired his imagination, with his curiosity sparked by trips to the local library.
He said: “Where does Fortitude come from? I think it comes from being brought up in Wishaw. It’s from Coltness, that’s where it’s from. I’m at the end of the world already before I get going, I’ve got to find my way into the world. There is a sense of that.
“When you grow up in central Scotland in the 60s and 70s, as I did, I think you have adventure in your head.
“Wishaw library was probably the most imimportant thing that happened when I grew upup. I immersed myself in a great big beautiful cicivic library with staff who were helpful and enencouraging of a wee kid.
“They gave me concessionary tickets for four bobooks from the adult library when I was still at primary or just going into high school.
“I was a wee spotty kid but I went into the adult ad section of Wishaw library and I read every ev book with a yellow spine because that meant m it was a science-fiction book and I filled fi my head up with that stuff. That was where w Fortitude started.”
Simon, 59, still visits Wishaw because his dadad lives there but Fortitude has taken him fufurther afield to the town of Longyearbyen, wwhich was the model for the show.
The third and final series of the show, which is on Sky Atlantic on Thursdays and boasts an alall-star cast including Dennis Quaid, Michael GGambon, Sofie Grabol, Stanley Tucci and RRichard Dormer, was filmed there for the