Rebecca Stayton says she also had a period of «feeling invisible»; Photo: Ludovic Robert/BBC
“Anyone can fall victim to a good scammer. Everyone has a vulnerability that can be exploited, ”say writers Ginny and Penelope Skinner. A study of their exciting new BBC drama The Following Events Are Based on a Pile of Lies has taught the sisters that — despite the strong assumption that scammers' victims are stupid or softhearted — our ability to be deceived has «nothing to do with your personality type, unrelated to your age, class, race, or gender,” depending on your circumstances.
“These predators are looking for people of any type in times of crisis or change. So they will find you after a job loss, divorce, bereavement… or winning the lottery.” That's why the psychotic rogue whose false promises are at the heart of this series is as successful infiltrating working-class homes as Oxford colleges. But instead of putting the criminal at the center of the action — as is the case in many crime dramas — «Next Events» reverses the script to make the characters of its various victims team up to get revenge.
And since his main target is women, whom he seemingly «rescues» from traumatic situations before seducing them with grand romantic gestures and then tricking them into believing they're crazy, there's a feminist flavor to the story.
The cast is led by 42-year-old Rebecca Staton, best known for playing the naive waitress Louise on the Bafta-nominated sitcom Cravings. She is beautiful and bright in the role of the abandoned wife of the swindler Alice; we meet her almost 20 years after the man she knew as «Robbie from Stoke» disappeared along with all the money her parents invested in one of his real estate schemes.
At that point, Alice clearly had a breakdown because she really loved “her Robbie” and believed that he loved her,” Staton says. “She has no idea what happened to him. Because of him, her parents lost their home. She has had to deal with so many questions and so many documents, and she has no answers.”
Stayton emphasizes that he did not steal Alice's heart and money. He left her emotionally isolated — «living a half-life because she couldn't tell anyone about the extent of the psychological abuse she'd been subjected to.»
Robbie tracked her menstrual cycle and used it against her to convince her that she was emotionally unstable. “So he stole her confidence and time. All women have a biological clock, and we are always told that we must deal with it. Fortunately, by the time we met, Alice met a wonderful man and gave birth to a child.
In the opening scenes of the show, this nice man (Julian Barratt of The Mighty Boosh) gives Alice a pep talk before a big work event. On her way to work, she sees Robbie on the street — a sharp-chinned Alistair Petrie from the sex education department — and discovers that he is now impersonating Dr. Robert Chance: a climate change scientist and protégé of Britain's most famous researcher (Derek Jacoby). < br />
When she finds that the police cannot help her, Alice becomes a detective. A little haphazard investigation reveals that he is already focused on his next target: the highly educated, highly confident and successful writer Cheryl (Without a Trace and Secrets and Lies, star Marianne Jean-Baptiste).
The Skinner sisters based Robbie's «sleek, controlled, blow-dry façade» of Michael Douglas' casually-faithful character in Adrian Lyne's 1987 classic thriller Fatal Attraction. They roll their eyes as they discuss how this film has infiltrated a misogynistic culture, allowing men to call their exes «bunny cauldrons» for any expression of unwanted emotion. “Alice has a real, subconscious fear that this is how she will be perceived. Also, films from the 1980s often contained the idea that it is romantic when men are pushy and psychotic when women are pushy.»
Fraudster: Alistair Petri as Robbie in «The Next Events Are Based on Lies» By: Ludovic Robert
Despite the story's quirky humor, «The Next Events» is a thriller that takes you deep into the dangers of running into a psychopath . After a couple of episodes, Robbie squeezes Alice's throat with his hand so hard that she loses control of her bladder. «And then he'll be ashamed again, won't he?» Staton says. «He might look at her in disgust and say, 'Clean yourself up.'
To be sure, Alice directs the Madonna. “She's been a Madonna fan all her life,” Staton says, “and that's what I think is important to this story. Some songs bring her back to the girl she was before she met Robbie. Entering the dance floor to ballads like Crazy for You made her think she would fall into a man's arms and he would save her. But now she realizes that many years ago she fell into the arms of a monster and now she needs to escape. Madonna is a woman who has taken control and reinvented herself.”
Stayton, too, experienced periods of feeling invisible. She was born in Stoke in 1981 as the daughter of an Anglican minister. Sometimes she lacked confidence, she said. “When it comes to being a good daughter and a good mother [to my son with actor husband Anthony Flanagan], I have hesitations. But I have always been confident in acting. One of my earliest memories is trying to get behind the TV and join Mr. Spoon on the children's series Button Moon.
At 18, Staton won a Rada Fellowship, a fortunate cultural shift that she likens to being «pulled out of normal life like one of those fairground invaders.» But she says that «despite my Rada resume, I still performed on stage for years as maids and secretaries» before landing her most high-profile roles on television, first in Sharon Horgan's Attraction and then as the smug single mother Della in Raised by Wolves.
Rebecca Stayton plays Alice, who is robbed by her cheating ex-husband. Photo: Jay Brooks
“Like Next Events, it was a great sister show with fun and supportive crews,” says Stayton, who felt women were really gaining influence in the industry “when Covid came along and stopped everything.” She was afraid they would lose momentum or forget about her. “So when this script came out, I was so relieved and delighted to be part of a story that I feel personally and politically connected to. And the casting was so great. I didn't have to endure this conversation about «am I attractive enough» for the role. The question was: can I play Alice as a normal woman that the audience would identify with?»
The Skinners believe their story is timely. They note that violations occur both in the global political arena and within the country. Historically, scammers have gotten their jobs done in times of war, revolution, and upheaval, exploiting greed during the American gold rush or desperation during the plague. Many experts argue that the rapid growth of the Internet has ushered in a «golden age of scams». Indeed, Netflix's Tinder Fraud, about how the victims of an Israeli scammer worked together to bring him to justice, became the streaming service's most watched documentary when it aired in 2022.
Marianne Jean-Baptiste plays one of Robbie's new victims. Photo: Ludovic Robert
Stayton shakes his head as he tells me about «friends in their 80s». scammed by online banking scammers; The Skinners, meanwhile, say that everyone involved in the making of the show had a story to tell about a cheater or former gaslighter. “We are talking about a moment of crisis that makes us vulnerable,” they say. «Well, Covid has made us vulnerable as a global community.»
Stayton hopes that any victims who watch the show will be able to «learn their experience, feel heard and trusted.» She smiles. «It would be really nice if we could help people figure out what happened to them and get rid of that shame.»
The following events are based on a bunch of lies and will start tonight at 21:00 on the BBC. One
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