Tick, tick, boom
Former British Army bomb-disposal expert Joel Snarr recalls working with Vicky McClure and the team behind ITV drama Trigger Point, filming scenes in a deserted London street and balancing reality with television fiction.
When he became an advisor on ITV drama Trigger Point, former British Army bomb-disposal expert Joel Snarr quickly learned how television can often play fast and loose with the way things are done in the real world.
“You could be a diehard army or police officer, or a medic, and you could scream and shout about the realities of things and the proper way to do things. But that’s not what the demographic [the audience] want necessarily,” he tells DQ. “They think they might want that, but it can be an incredibly slow process for obvious reasons.”
Starring Vicky McClure, Trigger Point follows the work of expos (bomb-disposal officers) in London’s Metropolitan Police Bomb Disposal Squad, which is called to tackle numerous threats across the city.
Across two seasons of the series, which is produced by HTM Television and distributed by All3Media International, Snarr worked alongside the producers and directors to make the series as true to life as possible while also meeting the ambitions of the creative team, which includes executive producer Jed Mercurio (Line of Duty).
“We were invited to read all the scripts, we write reports with errors based on reality and fantasy, and then we offer multiple options for what could work,” he explains. “Then you hand in your report and you try to explain where you start from. How did you get into this bit? What do you need to know as a base knowledge? How do you get to become SO15 [counterterrorism police]? How do you get to become a high-threat operator, which is seen as the pinnacle? Then as soon as you spend a couple of hours explaining all these things and explaining how explosives actually work, everyone’s understanding of it increases automatically and that, in turn, guides how to get the most out of things.”
Trigger Point, which debuted in 2022 and returned for season two earlier this year, marked the military veteran’s first step into TV production after a career that saw him join the army aged 20 and complete multiple tours in Iraq, Afghanistan and Northern Ireland with the 11 EOD (Explosive Ordnance Disposal) and Search Regiment, which is part of the army’s Royal Logistic Corps and is responsible for the safe recovery or disposal of improvised explosive devices and other conventional weapons.
Tragically, on Snarr’s first tour of Afghanistan in 2008, a colleague was killed in front of him, while other high-pressure situations caused Snarr to suffer mental health problems that led to conversations about his departure from the military in 2018.
“I didn’t want to, but I certainly wasn’t well enough to be operational at the time,” he admits. “For right or wrong, that was the army’s policy at the time. So I said, ‘OK, fine.’” He was then left to process that decision and try to decide what to do with the rest of his life.
But what happened next was a remarkable feat of bravery and heroism. As Snarr was driving home through South Wales in May 2019 with his pregnant wife, a light aircraft attempting an emergency landing flew overhead before it clipped some power lines, crashed onto the road and burst into flames.
“I just said to my wife, ‘Call the fire service. I’ll be back in a minute.’ I jumped over the central reservation, sprinted down there and helped pull three people out of the plane and then just went about my way. I was fortunate enough to receive a Pride of Britain Award, a St David’s Award because I live in Cardiff, and then a Queen’s Gallantry Medal from the Queen. It was a remarkable, incredible day, and everyone walked away [from the crash] without even needing hospital treatment.
“I spent a year feeling worthless about how I was having to leave the army, and it was like the universe gave me a little challenge, if you will, and I passed.”
Soon afterwards, Snarr and his wife welcomed the arrival of their daughter, before the UK went into lockdown at the start of the Covid pandemic. During the crisis, he returned to work as operations manager at the temporary Dragon’s Heart Hospital at Cardiff’s Principality Stadium, while he also revisited some of the skills he learned in the army as a consultant for several companies.
It was then that he saw a job posting on LinkedIn from military advisor Paul Biddiss, who was looking for people to join his film and television company. Several years out of the army, Snarr is now building a career as a TV and film military consultant, while also lending his EOD expertise to private companies, the British Ministry of Defence and NATO.
On the set of Trigger Point, one of his biggest roles was advising on the kit that actors including McClure (Lana), Nabil Elouahabi (Hass) and Eric Shango (Danny) would have to wear to play expos.
“I remember Vicky and Nabil asking me, ‘How do I walk? How do I think? What’s going through my mind?’” Snarr says. “I’ve done it a thousand times, and they’re just doing it once, so making it look like it’s your day job is the big bit. There’s a few briefs, the odd pep talk and a few practical demonstrations, and then Vicky and Nabil and a few others have to walk and talk like me.”
However, the biggest “eye-opener” for the actors was learning exactly what kind of mindset real-life expos need when they go about their work in the field. “We want there to be bombs,” Snarr says. “It is a good day if you’re getting to do your job. You’re chomping at the bit to do it, and that was the biggest bit to sell to everyone. We’re ready, we’re absolutely up for this.
“You’re not just trained. You’ve got to want it because if you don’t want it, if you don’t have the right attitude, you won’t pass the courses. You’ve got to be willing to do all of it.”
Stepping into the real protective suits Snarr and his army colleagues actually wear also provided an element of realism for the actors. “Now, make no mistake how uncomfortable these things are to wear,” Snarr says. “When Vicky is playing Lana and she looks physically uncomfortable from wearing these suits, that’s real, because they’re really heavy and they’re really uncomfortable.”
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But why does Lana always take off her helmet when she’s attempting to defuse an explosive device? “I have offered to make a video [explanation] for Vicky because of the amount of grief she was getting for taking her helmet off,” Snarr laughs. “What do you think that helmet is doing 100mm from 5kg of explosives? The armour and helmet is designed to protect you going forward or backwards from an explosion, from high velocity fragmentation. It will do nothing for a positive blast wave.
“That’s what people don’t get. They’re like, ‘Why are you taking your helmet off?’ Genuinely, that’s what you do. If it explodes now, you’re dead. Just get it off and do your job in a little bit of comfort.”
Returning with Biddiss for season two, Snarr says that rather than the programme makers becoming more ambitious, it was he who “stepped up my game,” as he had a better understanding of what could be achieved by the show. Post-pandemic, Snarr was also involved earlier in development and set up a “bomb shop” for the producers to see different items that could potentially be used in the show.
“We spent a whole day going through PowerPoints, videos, kit and different types of disrupters. Alongside this, Paul was training the CTSFOs [counter terrorism specialist firearms officers], and then we brought them together for a final exercise, as if they were breeching a room where they found an IED and what to do. So we got to up our game more than anything. And in doing that, Vicky, Nabil and everyone else’s ears pricked up even more, so they took in even more.”
One of Snarr’s favourite moments from the series is a scene from season one that was filmed in a deserted London street. In the story, the road has been emptied, save for a double decker bus that may contain a bomb.
“I put Vicky in the suit and I said to her, ‘I’m jealous. The long walk you’re about to do [to the bus], it’s some of the best times of my life.’ I love that scene,” he says. “I loved being there, and it was just like you would do in Northern Ireland or in the UK, exactly the same.”
That walk to the bomb, which Snarr calls ‘The Longest Walk,’ is one he has done countless times before. “You do it on your own in your bomb suit, and you are the only person stupid enough to walk towards that device – and it’s up to you to sort it out,” he says. “Everyone else stays 100, 200 or 400 metres away, and there’s no one to talk to. There’s no radios. You’re just on your own. It’s great.”
Another memorable scene took place in season two, where a CTSFO steps on a pressure plate, detonating a bomb. “It’s probably my favourite scene in season two, because the explosion looks great on TV. It’s not how explosives work – it’s impossible to replicate high explosives on set – but the way they set it up with the explosion and the way the stuntie [stunt actor] took the blast, they did a really good job, considering it was freezing,” he says.
“It was about 1°C in this wet, disused multi-storey car park. We’d been there for days, and everyone’s patience was running out. They did a brilliant job. It was originally meant to be on the roof, and it rained so hard on the third day that they had to rebuild the set on one of the other floors and start again. Where there’s the explosion and there’s that ringing in Vicky’s ears, I thought that was really good.”
Between seasons one and two of Trigger Point, Snarr also joined Biddiss on the set of Ridley Scott’s historical epic Napoleon, and is now also working on several new screen projects. But no matter whether he’s working on a blockbuster film or television show, Snarr says his role is never to limit the ambitions of the story or restrict the action to the realms of reality.
“We don’t rule anything out. We never cross that line,” he adds. “If anything, we’ll voice our concerns, but we’re not directors. We’re not producers. We’re not actors. You’ve just got to trust them. From the outside, sometimes you can look at it and think, ‘I’m not sure this is going to work,’ and then you see it on ITV and you’re like, ‘What you’ve just put out is brilliant.’”
tagged in: All3Media International, HTM Television, ITV, Joel Snarr, Trigger Point