Jeff Pope’s Hatton Garden has finally landed on ITV, depicting the events of the Easter Bank Holiday weekend in 2015 which saw a gang of pensioners break into the safety deposit facility. Leading the cast and the gang of elderly men is Harry Potter actor Timothy Spall, 62, as Terry Perkins, with Kenneth Cranham, 74, portraying the role of Brian Reader. Between the two of them, the men devised the plan to get their hands on the cash, with Reader backing out after the gang’s first failed attempt at cracking the vault. However, Perkins wasn’t having any of it and managed to convince three of his fellow gang members to have another go at stealing the goods. Related articles Hatton Garden on ITV delay: Why was ITV series Hatton Garden delayed? Hatton Garden on ITV air date, cast, trailer, plot That's when we realised we had a story Jeff Pope In conducting research for the drama to ensure the events were accurately portrayed, Jeff and his co-writer Paul Whittington read the transcripts of the original testimonies of the men following their interrogation by police. Speaking of the real plot running alongside the heist itself, Pope told press including Express.co.uk: “When you read what they were saying in their own words from covert police recordings, that was when we realised we had a story which was to do with the power struggle between Perkins and Reader.” With Perkins refusing to give up on the job, he and his other associates completed the heist and managed to all away with £14million worth of stolen goods. To add even greater details to the drama to recreate the true events, Pope, Whittington and the cast visited the real vaults which the men broke into. At the time of their visit, the crime scene was virtually untouched, allowing the creative team to accurately recreate the setting for the ITV drama. Of recreating the crime scene, Whittington explained: “We recreated the entire basement floor of that building where the vault is on a brilliant set.” Hatton Garden on ITV: Writer spills on crucial moment which reveals REAL story of drama (Image: ITV) Hatton Garden on ITV: Brian Reader and Terry Perkins' power struggle is shown in the four-part drama (Image: ITV) He continued: “We pretty much recreated it to scale. It was important to do that in a way that enabled us to execute the robbery in the right way. “It was very interesting looking at the way they went in and actually how rudimentary and industrial. They smashed their way into that place. “We created a set we could smash our way into and to make it as authentic as possible so the actors could physically get their hands dirty. “It felt important to everybody, particularly the cast to have that detail right, to feel the physicality of it,” Paul added. The ITV drama had been put on hold for two years after production had originally wrapped in 2017 following a series of court cases involving the robbers. Related articles Prince Philip made surprise Hatton Garden heist film set visit King of Thieves: Michael Caine on working with cast of British legends Hatton Garden on ITV: The creative team recreated the vaults from scratch to portray the drama (Image: ITV) In the meantime, theatrical versions of the drama such as The Hatton Garden Job and King of Thieves have been released which led to some frustrations amongst the creative team. Speaking of watching the films, Pope said: “We did start work on it before any of the films. I personally haven’t seen any of them. Took the decision not to.” Whittington explained: “I didn’t know about the other projects when we first started this and then you become aware of them. “For us, I don’t think it was ever a consideration. This just felt like such a distinctive piece, I suppose I did take a decision not to watch anything. “From reading these scripts, it was very clear what this story was and the tone of it and what it was setting out to do. I don’t think we’d ever have been swayed from telling it in the exact way we have done.” Hatton Garden continues tonight at 9pm on ITV.All rights reserved for this news site express.co.uk and under his responsibility