WRECK

STRAP IN FOR A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S NIGHTMARE... SFX GOES ON SET FOR THE RETURN OF WRECK

WORDS: ROBBIE DUNLOP

Phill Martin as the mysterious Creep: slicey dicey!

AUGUST 2023. SFX IS considerably high up a disused office block in Belfast city centre, sheltering from the blistering heat. Here, camera rehearsals are underway on the second series of BBC Three horror hit Wreck.

It’s the storm before the calm. Loud bangs and crashes from unseen construction workers reverberate across the room’s bare, stone walls, while production crew mill around with paperwork and chirruping radio mics. A recording is looming…

As is frightfully tall actor Phill Martin. He’s pacing back and forth to one side, carrying a plastic duck mask. Could this be…? A closer inspection reveals that no, it isn’t. Not quite.

A monitor – the focus of half-a-dozen seated crew members – feeds an image of the filming set-up behind a nearby soundproofing curtain. We glimpse a suited man standing at an open window, gazing out onto the bustling Northern Irish capital. This is actor Joseph Arkley, playing Thomas Deveraux, a key member of shadowy mega-corporation Velorum.

A hush is called, and the room falls deathly silent – even the construction workers have downed their tools.

“Action!”

“Aquamarine or duck egg blue?” Thomas is deliberating on the colour scheme of Velorum’s new London headquarters. On hand to offer office décor advice is a familiar face from series one: Officer Beaker (Warren James Dunning). But Beaker has relinquished his familiar cruise ship uniform and – as the sea of tower blocks outside makes clear – we’re not going to find a cruise ship this far ashore. What gives?

THE WILD LIFE

During a break in the filming of what we later discover is a key flashback, SFX sits down with Wreck creator and writer, Ryan J Brown. The first series made quite a splash, didn’t it?

“It was mad,” Brown smiles. “I always knew that it would be a slow growth, but the audience has grown and grown. It’s really nice hearing from people all around the world. It’s so unexpected and so lovely.”

Series two picks up six months after Velorum was exposed for allowing wealthy guests to engage in human-hunting bloodsports on board luxury cruise ship the Sacramentum. Now former shipmates Jamie (Oscar Kennedy) and Vivian (Thaddea Graham), along with a gang of fellow survivors, are endeavouring to take down their former boss.