The Poisoners is an 8 episode series currently in development. Do get in touch if you want to hear more.

 

In 1997, South African police made a startling discovery. After a bungled ecstasy deal involving one of the apartheid regime’s top scientists, three trunks were discovered containing thought to be destroyed information about the white government’s top secret biological and chemical warfare programme, Project Coast. In the trial of that scientist, Dr. Wouter Basson, the darkest secrets of the apartheid government would come to light, revealing one of the most sinister episodes in modern history, and how the apartheid regime for decades attempted to control the region: through poison.

 

Because the South African apartheid regime was one of the most prolific and successful users of poison in history, and from the 1970s onward they created a climate of fear through widespread political assassinations using poison. Poisonings, and the accusations of poisoning, draw a through line throughout the major events of modern South African history. The legacies of these decades of horror can still be felt today.