Netflix Legends’ Star Steve Coogan’s Offscreen Life and Famous Rock Star Ex
Steve Coogan leads a customs team that uses false identities to infiltrate heroin rings in a late-1980s operation inspired by real drug seizures.
- Netflix debuted the crime drama 'Legends' on Thursday, starring Steve Coogan as the head of an undercover customs unit infiltrating heroin rings in the early 1990s.
- Following a series of high-profile drug deaths, the Investigation Division was losing its battle against drug gangs, prompting Margaret Thatcher to order customs officers undercover.
- Barely overseen and with limited funding, these untrained customs officials seized more than 12 tonnes of heroin with a street value of over £1bn.
- Operating under false identities called 'legends', officers like Guy Stanton maintained these personas for more than 11 years while keeping their families believing they held quiet office jobs.
- Writer Neil Forsyth describes the drama as 'a rich, nuanced true story', using the series to reflect on the declining fortunes of 1990s England under Thatcher's governance.
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How, in the early 1990s, Margaret Thatcher's Great Britain tried to stop heroin trafficking by infiltrating its networks with...
Netflix Legends boss shares real reason for Guy Stanton series as he takes thinly-veiled BBC dig: 'Got to be brave'
Legends creator Neil Forsyth has said writers have “got to be brave” when tackling sensitive real-life material, as he defended the way his new Netflix drama portrays criminal networks and communities
Steve Coogan and Tom Burke Excel as Undercover Agents in Netflix War on Drugs Drama ‘Legends’: TV Review
In the parlance of undercover operatives, a “legend” is the false identity one concocts to infiltrate a criminal network. “Your legend has to come from you, or it won’t work. Your legend has to be part of you, or it won’t work,” explains Don (Steve Coogan), a British customs agent charged with training a group of amateur spies to infiltrate heroin rings in the twilight of the Thatcher era. “And when legends don’t work, people die.” “Legends” …
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