The BBC has released casting details for SAS Rogue Heroes as filming gets underway

Cairo, 1941. David Stirling – an eccentric young officer, hospitalised after a training exercise went wrong – is bored. Convinced traditional commando units don’t work, he creates a radical plan that flies in the face of all accepted rules of modern warfare. He fights for permission to recruit the toughest, boldest and brightest soldiers for a small undercover unit that will create mayhem behind enemy lines. More rebels than soldiers, Stirling’s team are every bit as complicated, flawed and reckless as they are astonishingly brave and heroic.

The synopsis sets out the story of Ben Macintyre’s best-selling book. SAS: Rogue Heroes is a dramatised account of how the world’s greatest Special Forces unit, the SAS, was formed under extraordinary circumstances in the darkest days of World War Two. The central cast (left to right in the photo) is: Connor Swindells (Sex Education, Vigil) as David Stirling, Jack O’Connell (Skins, The North Water) as Paddy Mayne, Alfie Allen (Jojo Rabbit, Game Of Thrones) as Jock Lewes, and Sofia Boutella (Modern Love, Atomic Blonde) as Eve. Dominic West (The Wire, Appropriate Adult) will play Lieutenant Colonel Wrangel Clarke.

SAS Rogue Heroes (6×60’) is created and written by Steven Knight (Peaky Blinders, Taboo, A Christmas Carol) and will be directed by Tom Shankland (The Serpent, The Missing), with Stephen Smallwood (The Serpent, Patrick Melrose) as producer.

You can read the full details in the BBC’s announcement.