"Disaster at Sea: The Piper Alpha Story copes with the challenge superbly, leaning heavily on survivor testimony 61 men escaped from the rig and combining it with a simple 2D diagram of the platform's layout to give us the fullest picture possible. It doesn't have the special-effects budget that would be required to simulate the ferocity of the fire or the intensity of the thick, black smoke possibly no amount of pyrotechnics or CGI would be able to do that anyway"
"It's excellent work by a cast of little-known actors, made all the more powerful by them using nothing but a chair, a table and the transcript. Context is provided by archive newsreel, and by the wives and children of the men who were aboard Piper Alpha, who talk of families reluctantly adjusting to a life where the father/husband would be absent and hard to contact for a fortnight at a time."
The Piper Alpha oil production platform suffered a catastrophic gas explosion and fire on 6 July 1988 that destroyed the structure and killed 167 people. Sixty-one men escaped the rig. Survivor testimony and a simple 2D platform diagram reconstruct the sequence of events. Reconstructions of the blaze are minimal due to the impossibility of realistically simulating its ferocity and dense smoke. Dramatised inquiry transcripts are performed by a small cast using only a chair, table and the transcript. Archive newsreel and interviews with wives and children convey the wider social and economic context, including job losses and corporate ties.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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