INSIDE STRANGEWAYS [1x60]

Producer–Director | Channel 5 / Viacom Studios

A historical documentary exploring the 1990 Strangeways Prison Riot through the first-hand accounts of prison officers, inmates and witnesses caught up in Britain’s longest prison siege.

The film examined how tensions inside the prison escalated into days of violence, protest and institutional breakdown, combining contributor testimony, archive material and dramatic reconstruction to recreate the atmosphere and chaos of the uprising. I directed sensitive interviews with contributors reflecting on events that remained emotionally and psychologically charged decades later, while shaping a narrative that balanced conflicting perspectives from both sides of the prison walls.

A major part of the production involved staging large-scale reconstruction sequences designed to immerse viewers inside the prison during the riot itself — from rooftop protests and hostage situations to the growing sense of fear and instability spreading through the building.

My approach was to create a documentary that felt tense, cinematic and emotionally immediate while remaining grounded in factual testimony and historical detail. The production combined archive research, eyewitness accounts and stylised visual storytelling to examine not only the riot itself, but the wider failures within the British prison system that contributed to the uprising.