The BBC has released an action-packed trailer for its new series about the Hereford-based Special Air Service (SAS).
Based on the best-selling book of the same name by Ben Macintyre, SAS Rogue Heroes is a six-part dramatised account of how the famous regiment was formed under extraordinary circumstances in the darkest days of World War Two.
The new video introduces the series' key characters and is set to the soundtrack of a new version of The Stranglers’ hit No More Heroes, here performed by Skin, the lead singer of Skunk Anansie.
There are exciting scenes of planes being blown up, brawls and vehicles racing across the desert. The clips show that there will be also be moments of humour amid the action.
SAS Rogue Heroes has been written by Steven Knight, the creator of the acclaimed Birmingham-set gangster series Peaky Blinders.
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He said: “It has been a privilege to work on a project which tells the story of a renegade band of soldiers who used wit and imagination as much as firepower to halt the march of fascism across North Africa during the darkest days of World War Two.
This is a war story like no other, told in a way that is at once inspired by the facts and true to the spirit of this legendary brigade of misfits and adventurers."
The regiment's roots lie in Cairo in 1941. David Stirling – an eccentric young officer hospitalised after a training exercise went wrong – was convinced that traditional commando units did not work.
He created a plan that flew in the face of all accepted rules of modern warfare. He fought for permission to recruit the toughest, boldest and brightest soldiers for a small undercover unit that would create mayhem behind enemy lines.
As much rebels as soldiers, Stirling’s team were as complicated, flawed and reckless as they were astonishingly brave.
The SAS today is the most elite fighting force in the world, and its hand-picked troops have to pass a legendarily tough selection process.
The regiment moved to Hereford in 1960. Initially, it was based at Bradbury Lines (later renamed Stirling Lines), a former Royal Artillery boys' training unit, before moving in 2000 to the old RAF base at Credenhill, just outside Hereford.
The SAS – whose winged Excalibur badge bears the motto Who Dares Wins – had distinguished itself on many operations since its formation, but it was the 1980 raid that ended the Iranian Embassy siege in London that lifted its fame and mystique to a new level.
Hereford takes immense pride in being the home of one of the world's most famous regiments, and its emotional ties have been strengthened as soldiers married into local families over six decades.
- SAS Rogue Heroes begins at 9pm on Sunday, October 30, on BBC One. The six-episode series will then be available on the BBC iPlayer.
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