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How much of Killing Eve is based on reality?

Did you know that the writers of the BBC drama Killing Eve have a security consultant? His name is Gordon Corera, and he has written extensively about MI6, cyberspies, and sleeper cells. He’s even written about something called the secret pigeon service.

This week on our BBC Sounds podcast Bad People, Sofie Hagen and I got to speak with Gordon about his work advising the writers of Killing Eve, which is now in its fourth season. Nestled into the BBC recording studio, he told us “Killing Eve is kind of fantastical, and it’s in another world, but there are also bits of it which are rooted in the real world, in the real world of assassins and spies".

The kill list

Early in his consulting role the writers of Killing Eve asked Gordon to put together a list of “kills” for Villanelle. Villanelle is the larger-than-life, high-fashion character played by Jodie Comer. The writers wanted some inspiration for how the character would go about killing people in creative ways.

You kind of can take real-life examples and they sound like the stuff of fiction, that’s what’s crazy about the world of spies."

As Gordon told us about being asked for this kill list, “That was one of the strangest things in the first series… they needed some ideas. How do you do this? What kind of ways are there to do this?" He continued, “you kind of can take real-life examples. And they sound like the stuff of fiction, and that’s what’s crazy about the world of spies".

Combing through real examples across time and from various countries, he created a list of assassinations. From someone getting sprayed with a toxin at an airport by a erby, to examples from WW2 and the Cold War, there is apparently plenty to work with. As Gordon told us, “You think back to the Cold War, where the CIA tried to kill Castro with an exploding cigar, or a poisoned wetsuit. They were going to give him a wetsuit which had been impregnated with poison and kill him that way".

These stranger than fiction real-life examples then feed into the clever kills that we see on the show. Rarely stolen directly, instead, “what you would find is that the Killing Eve writers would just give it this Killing Eve zing, and take it maybe in a different direction”, explained Gordon.

Our conversation with Gordon excitedly drifted back and forth between assassins and spies. We spoke about the assassin Villanelle and the intelligence officer who is always tracking her, Eve.

Online backstories

Turning to the world of spies, Sofie and I wondered whether our online lives make it harder or easier to have good cover stories. Gordon explained that being a spy used to be easier, and that security services would have a catalogue of backstories ready to go.

These days creating a fake identity is much harder because you need an online backstory."

As Gordon explained, “these days creating a fake identity is much harder because you need an online backstory. You need a digital profile. You need a social media trail. After all if you haven’t got one, that makes you look like a spy because who doesn’t these days have a digital trail around them?"

It takes foresight to create a believable digital trail, but these too can be prepared by intelligence organisations. Vague online profiles can be turned into identities that are slipped into when needed.

Once you’ve got a new identity you need to make sure you don’t slip up. In a world of constant sharing on social media that might be easier said than done. When we asked whether our Generation Overshare is ill-suited to becoming spies, we got a “yeah” from Gordon, followed by him agreeing that it certainly takes a certain kind of person to be a spy.

Intelligence officer or spy?

So, what kind of person can be a spy? Both Gordon and the MI5 website itself assure us that what’s needed for intelligence work is a range of people, with different personalities and skills. Barring people who can’t keep secrets, of course.

Next question, should you become a spy or an intelligence officer? And what’s the difference? Gordon told us, “The job of a spy is to steal secrets". Broadly, intelligence officers are people who handle information, while spies are the people who are obtaining the information and are more likely to be abroad. Eve in Killing Eve is more of an intelligence officer.

Far from the exciting life we see in shows like Killing Eve, there’s a lot of intelligence work that is really boring - waiting around for things to happen, sitting in dark cars doing surveillance, listening to hours of bugged conversations. Sometimes spies literally just walk around for hours, “they have to do this thing called dry-cleaning, which is getting rid of someone on your tail, and it might involve spending six hours walking around a city trying to lose your tail and make sure no one is following you before you meet someone” explained Gordon.

Hear us talk to Gordon about the real world of spies and assassins that inspires Killing Eve, the various places in your house that can be bugged, and that secret pigeon service I alluded to earlier.

Listen now to Bad People x Killing Eve, available exclusively on BBC Sounds.

Bio

Dr Julia Shaw is a research associate at University College London and the co-host of the Bad People podcast on BBC sounds.

She is an expert on criminal psychology, and the author of two books “Making Evil: The Science Behind Humanity’s Dark Side” and “The Memory Illusion: ing, Forgetting, and the Science of False Memory.

Her website: www.drjuliashaw.com, and twitter @drjuliashaw

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