EVIL under the sun

Tahar Rahim and Jenna Coleman on a true-crime thriller that follows a killer and his willing accomplice

- Sean Marland

During the 1970s, the ‘hippy trail’ that ran between Europe and South-East Asia was followed by thousands of Western backpackers looking to immerse themselves in different cultures.

But, amid the route’s modern-day pilgrims, there were rumours of a serial killer. A French conman, Charles Sobhraj, who was posing as a gem dealer as he and his girlfriend Marie-Andrée Leclerc travelled across Thailand, Nepal and India in 1975 and 1976, became the chief suspect for a string of suspicious deaths.

His talent for evading detection earned Sobhraj the nickname ‘The Serpent’, as, with Leclerc’s help, he repeatedly slipped the grasp of authorities all over the world.

Now BBC1’s new eight-part thriller, The Serpent, follows the couple (played by The Looming Tower’s Tahar Rahim and Victoria’s Jenna Coleman) on their crime spree and charts how they were eventually brought to justice.

Here, Tahar, 39, and Jenna, 34, tell TV Times more…

Tahar, did you know much about this case before taking the role?

TAHAR: My story with Charles starts when I was 16. I already wanted to be an actor and my brother had a book called The Life and Crimes of Charles Sobhraj by Richard Neville and Julie Clarke. I read it and I dreamed of playing that part because it was fascinating and you always want to play weird people when you don’t know what it is to act. So when my agent asked if I was interested in the part I couldn’t believe it!