The Gold is a British drama television series written and created by Neil Forsyth and co-produced by his Tannadice Pictures production company. It stars Hugh Bonneville, Dominic Cooper, Charlotte Spencer, Emun Elliott, Sean Harris, Jack Lowden and Tom Cullen and is a dramatisation of events that begin with the Brink's-Mat robbery in 1983. It is directed by Aneil Karia, Lawrence Gough and Patrick Harkins.
Contents
Synopsis
The series covers the 1983 Brink's-Mat robbery in which £26 million (equivalent to £88.4 million in 2025) worth of gold bullion, diamonds, and cash was stolen from a warehouse near Heathrow Airport, and the events that followed over the subsequent decade. At the time it was the biggest robbery in history, and led to a number of international criminal investigations.
Cast and characters
Main
Hugh Bonneville as DCS Brian Boyce
Jack Lowden as Kenneth Noye
Emun Elliott as Tony Brightwell
Charlotte Spencer as DI Nicki Jennings
Tom Cullen as John Palmer
Stefanie Martini as Marnie Palmer
Sean Harris as Gordon Parry (series 1)
Adam Nagaitis as Micky McAvoy (series 1)
Dominic Cooper as Edwyn Cooper (series 1; guest series 2)
Daniel Ings as Archie Osbourne (series 1)
Sam Spruell as Charlie Miller (series 2; guest series 1)
Stephen Campbell Moore as Tony Lundy (series 2)
Joshua McGuire as Douglas Baxter (series 2)
Tom Hughes as Logan Campbell (series 2)
Recurring
Ruth Bradley as Isabelle Cooper (series 1), Cooper's wife
Nichola Burley as Brenda Noye (series 1), Noye's wife
Peter Davison as Assistant Commissioner Gordon Stewart
Amanda Drew as Commander Cath McLean
Hadley Fraser as DC John Fordham (series 1)
Sean Gilder as Deputy Assistant Commissioner Neville Carter (series 1)
Sophia La Porta as Kathleen Meacock (series 1), McAvoy's lover
Dorothy Atkinson as Jeannie Savage (series 1), Noye's associate
Silas Carson as Harry Bowman, police officer
James Nelson-Joyce as Brian Reader
Ellora Torchia as Sienna Rose (series 1), Cooper's lover
Robyn Betteridge as Palmer’s daughter
Skylar Betteridge as Palmer’s daughter
Beth Goddard as Shirley (series 2), Palmer's accountant
Antonia Desplat as Léna (series 2), Palmer's lover
Joshua Samuels as Jerren (series 2), Palmer's driver
Sean Teale as Enrique (series 2), Palmer's employee
Aleksandar Jovanovic as Ivan (series 2), a Russian
Production
The series was commissioned by the BBC in August 2021.
The project was announced to have started principal photography in April 2022 with Bonneville, Lowden, Spencer, Cooper and Harris all revealed to be cast and Karia announced as director and Forsyth's Tannadice Pictures producing. Filming took place in the UK and Spain and locations included Dorchester Prison in July 2022.
The show was renewed for a second series in November 2023 with filming scheduled to start in January 2024. Returning cast members include Hugh Bonneville, Charlotte Spencer, Emun Elliott, Tom Cullen, Stefanie Martini and Sam Spruell.
Broadcast
The BBC released the first trailer for the show in on 20 January 2023. The first episode aired in the UK on BBC One on 12 February 2023 with all episodes immediately available on BBC iPlayer in UHD picture quality.
The Gold received very high viewing figures in Britain, particularly through the iPlayer catch up service. The opening episode eventually attracted ten million viewers.
It began streaming on Paramount+ in September 2023. The BBC commissioned a second series in November 2023, which began airing on BBC One on 8 June 2025, with all episodes released on BBC iPlayer the same day.
In the United States, the first series was re-aired on Masterpiece on PBS on 5 October 2025, and will be showing the second series in 2026.
The Gold has been widely broadcast internationally including on – PBS Masterpiece (North America), Rialto (New Zealand), CBC Gem (Canada), MagentaTV (Germany), Stan (Australia), ERR (Estonia) and BBC First (Asia/India).
Reception
Hugo Rifkind of The Times remarked of the series, "it's tremendous. I'm not sure there's been a drama like it in years". In the Sunday Times, Camilla Long said The Gold was "astonishingly, lavishly, well realised", while Esquire said that The Gold was "British TV at its best" and had "all the hallmarks of a crime classic". Radio Times said it was "an intricately crafted crime drama". Euan Franklin of Culture Whisper said The Gold "proves that shows dealing in largely British matters are just as ambitious as prestige American television". The New Statesman called it "outstandingly enjoyable TV", with the Evening Standard calling it "a truly smart British crime drama with a classic feel and a knockout cast". Ellen E. Jones of The Guardian dubbed it an "ever-enjoyable ride". Nick Hilton of The Independent remarked the show was "a lively, creative piece of work from writer-creator Neil Forsyth, which bubbles away with the vigour of a red-hot crucible".
The second series of The Gold received a similarly positive reception. In a five-star review, The Times called the second series, "Every bit as sparkling as the first, if not more so. An exceptional piece of television". The Telegraph said The Gold "retains its sparkle", and "what sets The Gold apart from similar dramas is the effortless grandeur of Neil Forsyth’s writing". The Sunday Times said "the shine hasn’t come off The Gold" and The Herald remarked that Forsyth had "expertly blown the bloody doors off again". The Metro said the second series was "once again brilliant. Perhaps even better", The Guardian called it "top quality British drama" with "thunderingly good performances, including Hugh Bonneville at his best", and the Evening Standard declared The Gold "still a criminally good time".
The Gold has also been well received internationally. The New York Times praised the "marvellous cast" and said that Forsyth was "working on a bigger canvas, presenting a broad mosaic of the British class system and the dead hand of tradition and hierarchy" while the LA Times called it "a patient portrait of cops, robbers, class and greed". In New Zealand, The Post called it "as good as British crime-drama gets" and in Australia the Sydney Morning Herald hailed The Gold as "a masterclass: both engrossing and poignant". The Spanish newspaper El Pais observed "time and time again, The Gold reveals the inescapable imprint of the human factor in every criminal act" while El Periódico compared The Gold to The Sopranos "in how prosaic its antiheroes can be". In France, Le Figaro said The Gold is "a virtuoso and sharp" drama that also served as a "vitriolic portrait of the class system".
Accolades
The series was nominated for Best Drama Series at the Royal Television Society Programme Awards. In March 2024, the series was nominated in the Best Drama category at the 2024 British Academy Television Awards.
Neil Forsyth was nominated for Best Writer Film and TV at the 2023 Scottish BAFTAS.
For the second series of The Gold, Joshua McGuire was nominated for both an RTS and BAFTA Supporting Actor Award for his performance as Douglas Baxter, while Tom Cullen was nominated for a Broadcasting Press Guild Award for his portrayal of John Palmer. At the RTS Scotland Awards, the show received three nominations for Neil Forsyth (Writer), Patrick Harkins (Director) and Jack Lowden (Best Actor).
Book
Screenwriter Neil Forsyth co-wrote a book with Thomas Turner entitled The Gold: The real story behind Brink's-Mat: Britain's biggest heist and published by Penguin Random House, which had involved extensive interviews with some of the major characters involved. Forsyth commented on the morality of the story, saying they were not seeking "a black-and-white reading of it. No-one in the show is an out-and-out criminal living in a world dictated by criminality. They've got families and lives". Forsyth gives historical context and says, "Social mobility is an interesting aspect, because it was obviously a theme of the time in the 1980s. I think we examine that...Criminality is a tool which they're trying to use to achieve something".