We’ve all been stuck on a train. Whether it’s broken down or delayed due to pesky leaves on the line, it’s a teeth-gnashing waste of time. But what if the train weren’t stationary? What if it were hurtling along at high speed for six terrifying hours? Oh and what if it didn’t have a driver? That’s the set-up for Nightsleeper, the BBC’s new blockbuster real-time thriller. Like Speed meets 24, with a dash of Bodyguard and Hijack, it’s a non-stop service from Tension Central to Plot Twist Parkway.
Cyberterrorists have seized control of an overnight service from Glasgow to London and are driving the train remotely – a crime known as “hackjacking”. Leading the fightback are two strangers: Joe (played by Joe Cole), an off-duty police officer who happens to be a passenger on the train, and Abby (Alexandra Roach), acting technical director at the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) who keeps in constant contact by phone from NCSC HQ. Across six propulsive episodes, our heroes race to beat the ticking clock and get everyone off board safely.
Nightsleeper is created and written by Nick Leather, who won a Bafta for true-crime drama Murdered for Being Different. Speaking via video call from his shed office in Manchester, Leather sits in front of a map of the UK rail network and a blueprint of the train (“I was determined to use every inch of it – every nook, cranny and toilet”) – the legacy of having worked on this idea for the past eight years. He fondly calls it “our crazy train show”.
“I loved 24, so always wanted to do something in real time,” he explains. “I also fancied doing a locked-room mystery, so I wondered if you could combine them. Lock the room, then resolve it in real time. And what if the room was moving? I wanted something quintessentially British. What do we talk about more than anything else? Trains and weather. For a six-hour journey, the sleeper train fitted the bill perfectly. It’s like playing with a giant train set.”
Leather was inspired by his own experience on a broken-down train. “Nothing as glamorous as the sleeper,” he laughs. “It was the Newton-le-Willows to Manchester line – only a 20-minute journey but we got stuck halfway for hours with no phone coverage and an out-of-order loo. What fascinated me was that for the first hour, nobody spoke. Then two people started arguing about the music emitted from someone’s headphones. Others joined in but rather than turning into a nightmare, it opened up conversations. There was lots of piss-taking and gallows humour. Somebody was on their way to a party with a bottle of wine. They opened it and slowly drank the whole bottle. It all fed into the script.”
Some of the passengers in Nightsleeper raid the drinks trolley. Some turn on each other. Some form friendships. One may be armed and in league with the hackers. The transport minister is on board but she’s useless and self-serving. Did Leather base this blond female politician on a real-life figure? “You’re getting me on to dodgy ground,” he grins. “Let’s just say she’s called Liz.”
It turns out that such a hackjacking is chillingly plausible. “Because rail companies are so profit-driven, they don’t spend much on security,” explains Leather. “They just cross their fingers that nothing will ever happen. We got three experts in a room to see if our premise was possible: an ethical hacker, a railway designer and a former government cyber expert who specialised in critical infrastructure. I feared they’d point out insurmountable obstacles and stop the idea in its tracks. In fact, within two hours, they said: ‘Between us, we could do this. We could hack a train.’ I had mixed feelings about that. I didn’t enjoy my next train journey, but for work purposes I was happy.”
Cole, whose recent credits include Anne Frank drama A Small Light and action thriller Gangs of London, has felt plenty of rail frustration himself. “Everybody in the UK has had negative experiences,” he says. “I’ve made plenty of shows up north – including Peaky Blinders and The Ipcress File – so have spent many a time trapped on trains. It felt so relatable.”
His character is equally easy to sympathise with: “He’s a reluctant hero. Leadership gets thrust upon him and it becomes clear he’s reluctant for a reason. But he has to step up and try to lead this merry band to survival. He’s a bit Jack Bauer, a bit Jason Bourne. There’s a Keanu-in-Speed vibe but with a British flavour. My character might be a cop but he’s no Tom Cruise.”
Roach became so intertwined with Abby that she’s kept her cropped haircut. “It’s rare to find an action-packed thriller with such well-drawn characters,” she says. “Abby’s an ex-hacker with spiky energy and rebellious spirit. She doesn’t quite fit into that government agency world. She’s an outsider in every way – how she dresses, her short hair, her south Wales accent.”
She may be a familiar face from the likes of police procedural No Offence, conspiracy thriller Utopia and Welsh crime drama The Light in the Hall but this is a breakout role for Roach. The fact that her character suffers panic attacks felt apt. “I brought my own anxiety to it! I haven’t led a big BBC show before, so it’s a step up in my career, just like Abby in her line of work. At times there was no acting required.”
With Cole trapped on the train and Roach running the NCSC nerve centre, Nightsleeper’s leads don’t meet face to face. Instead, there’s lots of phone acting. “I loved the intimacy of being in each other’s ears,” says Leather. “It’s a real human connection in the midst of this cyber thriller.” Creating chemistry wasn’t easy, considering their scenes were filmed separately. “To my relief, Joe was an absolute star and came in on Alex’s days to read his lines. That way, it didn’t always have to be a script supervisor filling in the other end of the phone call. It helped build rapport and warmth.”
The pair end up singing Kate Nash’s Foundations to each other. “Maybe it’s a bit cheesy with a side of halloumi fries but it’s a lovely little interlude,” chuckles Cole. “A cute way of connecting our characters. That song came out when me and Alex were in college. The fact that we both know the lyrics demonstrates that we’re a similar age, from similar worlds, and have an understanding. Hey, maybe Kate Nash will go to number one after this.”
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Most of Nightsleeper was filmed on purpose-built sets. “We constructed a train simulator in a warehouse just outside Glasgow,” says Leather. “It was so realistic that when I took my youngest child on board, she tried to use the toilet. I had to run in and say: ‘Stop, it’s not plumbed in!’ We filmed the actual route of the train and projected it on to LED screens outside the windows, so the world whizzing past is exactly right. Trouble was, it was so realistic that on the first day the actors all got travel sick. We had to stop filming because they felt rough. Every morning after that, half the cast took motion sickness pills, just to go and sit in a warehouse in Glasgow.”
“The effect was remarkable,” agrees Cole. “It properly felt like being on a train. Some people couldn’t look out of the window without wanting to throw up. Luckily, I was all right. I do a lot of running up and down aisles. I have my own The Shining moment, taking an axe to a door. You can really let your aggression out in this job sometimes. I enjoyed the stunts. I’d be hanging off the outside of the train while they sprayed water and air at me, with the carriages moving on hydraulics. Some of the pyrotechnics were real fire. They threw a lot at us but it was great fun.”
The quest for authenticity meant using some familiar voices. “I was on a train, running late for a production meeting, when an apology announcement mentioned delay repay,” says Leather. “I texted the producer and asked: ‘Who does those voices and can we hire them?’ Getting the actual people gave me so much satisfaction. Anne Jermy and Matthew Streeton are the voice of most UK stations. Anne does ‘See it, say it, sorted’. Michael does ‘Mind the gap’. But because they’ve been AI-manipulated by our hacker, they say increasingly sinister things. Who knew they’d buy into it with such enthusiasm?”
Will the series be bad publicity for train travel? “I went to a stag do in Glasgow recently and a few of the lads decided to get the sleeper train up there,” says Cole. “I was like: ‘Guys, do not get on that thing!’”
“After the show airs, I’ll be interested to see if more people start cycling to work,” says Roach. “When people see me on trains from now on, it might be triggering. I’m prepared for funny looks.” “I get funny looks on trains anyway,” deadpans Cole.
Leather hopes that Nightsleeper will have the opposite effect. “Maybe we’ll boost business for the Caledonian Sleeper,” he says. “Look at Agatha Christie. Murder never did the Orient Express any harm, did it?”
Nightsleeper is on 15 September on BBC One at 9pm. All episodes will be available on iPlayer from 6am.