Nowadays, it might be difficult to tell which outrageous TV shows are true and which are purely fictitious.
Take, for example, last year’s The Thief, His Wife, and the Canoe, in which Edde Marsan played John Darwin, a man who faked his own death and lived in a secret chamber in his own house until reappearing some years later.
The BBC has released a stunning new show dubbed Boat Story for fans to become engrossed in.
The story follows two strangers, Daisy Haggard and Paterson Joseph, who uncover a slew of illicit substances aboard a beached yacht.
They decide to band together in the hopes of striking it rich after falling on hard times… But then they had to deal with the crowd and the cops.
Is Boat Story based on a true story? Where is it set, and who stars? Here’s what you should know.
Is the Boat Story based on a real story?
While the plot of Boat Story isn’t based on a genuine story, key components of the drama are.
Harry Williams, who wrote and directed the series alongside his brother Jack Williams, explained that the idea for the tale ‘came from having seen articles about similar things involving large amounts of drugs washing up on shores somewhere’.
‘Most of the shows we come up with are through a series of conversations that we have with each other. This one, was what would we do if we had stumbled across a boatload of washed-up drugs?’ he shared, noting that they most likely wouldn’t have acted in the same way as their lead characters.
Jack added: ‘Boat Story is a contemporary morality tale and the challenge we wanted to set ourselves was to say, how do you tell this story in a way that is going to feel fresh, original, and different?
‘What we landed upon, was to make it a show about stories themselves, and why people tell stories and why people watch and enjoy them. There’s a meta layer to the whole show as well.’
Where is the Boat Story filmed?
Boat Story is set in Yorkshire, which is where filming also took place.
Writer Jack outlined how he and Harry ‘wanted somewhere by the coast’ when visualising their story.
However, it ‘wasn’t going to be the depiction of a traditional British TV coastal detective drama’.
‘We started to consider how to get a touch of that, but also somewhere urban that can also be rural, and we looked at a lot of different places,’ he shared.
‘We started from the coast and began working back and as we looked around Yorkshire and particularly Leeds and York, we found it offered a massive variety of locations to stitch together.’
He added that while there was ‘no town in England’ that ‘offered absolutely everything’ that viewers will see in the show, it’s a ‘slightly storybook version of it’.
Daisy said filming in Yorkshire as “beautiful,” and she really loved eating fish and chips during her lunch break.
‘There’s such a beauty to Yorkshire. It’s stunning and there’s something about the bleak beauty of a winter, being on the beach and the wind just stripping you. There’s something about that and the story that I think really, really works. I love Yorkshire, I think it’s stunning,’ she said.
Paterson added that he ‘loved every minute’ of filming in Yorkshire, and found discovering Halifax a ‘big surprise’, including ‘going into the covered market and finding “the street in the sky”, which is five-bedroom houses above a market’.
‘It’s a beautiful place and should be renovated as I think artists would love to live up there. I knew the Lake District quite well, but I didn’t know the Yorkshire Dales and everywhere we’ve been, has been beautiful,’ he said.
Who is in the cast of the Boat Story?
Daisy and Paterson portray the roles of Janet Campbell and Samuel Wells, respectively.
Daisy is most recognised for her appearances in Back to Life and Breeders, whilst Paterson has been in Noughts and Crosses and Vigil.
Tchéky Karyo plays an ominous person known as The Tailor, Joanna Scanlan plays Pat Tooh, and Craig Fairbrass plays Guy.
Boat Story BBC One and is available to watch on BBC iPlayer.
