producer Steven Knight has admitted that one plotline had to be removed from season one as it was “too unbelievable.”
The programme documents the story of the original SAS, with Connor Swindells as Lt Col David Stirling and Jack O’Connell playing Major Paddy Mayne.
Steven, who also created the hit series Peaky Blinders, spoke exclusively to a number of media outlets at the press launch of season two in December.
He confessed that one real-life story was so difficult to believe that they had to change it. SAS Rogue Heroes is adapted from true events during World War II, but the show insists at the start of each episode that “this is not a history lesson.”
“I think there’s a good story that indicates a lot of stuff about how you have to deal with the truth,” Steven said.
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Steven Knight has worked on both Peaky Blinders and SAS Rogue Heroes (Image: Getty)
“In series one, I had a scene where David Sterling (Swindells) threw a fake hand grenade onto a snooker tape in order to get the other people to give them access to the snooker tape.
“In reality, it was a real hand grenade. If you did that, you’d sort of lose empathy with the character, because that’s just ridiculous. It was actually a real hand grenade, so everybody did have to run, like to get away.”
He added: “You have to take what really happened and sometimes take it back, from what really happened, because people would go ‘that’s mad’, or they would think the character had gone too far.
“So there are occasions when I bought it back, and that’s true with Paddy (O’Connell), the stories of his exploits are quite hair raising.”
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Season Two is filmed in Croatia and picks up exactly after the events of David Stirling’s capture.
Prior to the second season airing, Connor Swindells revealed that he was originally not supposed to be in the second season of .
Speaking exclusively to Express Online and other media outlets, the star opened up about returning to the popular historical drama after a two-year wait.
Speaking about the show, he said: “I was absolutely delighted to come back, but I was only ever meant to do the first season.
“So, when [producer] Steven Knight delivered episode one and there I was page 59, and I got a call from the wonderful Stephen Smallwood asking what I was doing in the summer…I was truly delighted.”