“The Sal­is­bury Poi­son­ings review – Novi­chok dra­ma with lessons for now

While it also focus­es on an unbe­liev­able, dead­ly emer­gency, this drama­ti­sa­tion of the poi­son­ing of the Skri­pal fam­i­ly is a far cry from the chaos of life dur­ing the Covid crisis…as well as ren­der­ing a true sto­ry, they were mak­ing an allegory…conjured some­thing we now know, absolute­ly, to be much clos­er to the truth. Instead of hys­te­ria and fran­tic Dra­ma-with-a-cap­i­tal‑D in the face of an unknown con­ta­gion, it shows the dis­be­lief giv­ing way to hard accep­tance, the sense of ordi­nary life sud­den­ly intrud­ed upon and a new nor­mal mandated…The oppres­sive scale, unwield­i­ness and essen­tial unknowa­bil­i­ty of the devel­op­ing prob­lem is – we can say now with unwant­ed cer­tain­ty – per­fect­ly evoked…”

“The Sal­is­bury Poi­son­ings tells the untold sto­ries of the Novi­chok attack – and they are deeply affecting

…pro­duc­ers had decid­ed to side­step all of that and make a show about the civ­il ser­vants, the neigh­bours, the police offi­cers, and the nerve agen­t’s unin­tend­ed vic­tims. It sound­ed wor­thy – but would it actu­al­ly make for good dra­ma? The answer is: yes! The Sal­is­bury Poi­son­ings is a deeply affect­ing piece of tele­vi­sion – and as it turns out, the obvi­ous sto­ry was not the most inter­est­ing sto­ry after all…the biggest sto­ry of the Sal­is­bury nerve agent poi­son­ings was what the ​“ordi­nary peo­ple” went through, after all.”

“Extra­or­di­nary Real Life Novi­chok Drama

… the dra­ma is a trib­ute to the com­mu­ni­ty that found itself unex­pect­ed­ly at the cen­tre of this tragedy. It’s an acknowl­edge­ment of the keen instincts and robust work of Tra­cy Daszkiewicz and her teams, and a voice for the fam­i­lies of the attack’s unin­tend­ed vic­tims Nick Bai­ley and Dawn Sturgess… It’s also, inad­ver­tent­ly, an acute­ly rel­e­vant dis­til­la­tion of our present glob­al health cri­sis… This com­pas­sion­ate three-parter could dou­ble up as the first Coro­n­avirus dra­ma… This isn’t a work­place-only lan­yard dra­ma. Domes­tic scenes are used to mea­sure the emo­tion­al impact of what comes to pass… It’s not here to cash in on a sala­cious spy tale, but to remind us not to take our unseen pro­tec­tors for grant­ed, and in part, to reas­sure us that after cat­a­stro­phe, comes recovery.”