In 1963, a small-time South London carpenter joins the biggest robbery in British history for one reason - he knows a retired train driver who is semi-competent. And yet Ronnie Biggs will, for the next fifty years, be far more famous than the man who planned it, the rest of the gang who pulled it off, the train driver who was so brutally attacked, or the Scotland Yard detectives who solved the case.

How exactly is a criminal ‘legend’ born? Actor Daniel Mays delves into unheard Ronnie Biggs tapes and takes us back to the rubble of post-war London to find out …

Credits:

Presenter - Daniel Mays

Producers - Phoebe McIndoe & Jude Shapiro

Executive Producer - Jack Howson

Associate Exec - Chris Pickard

Mix Engineering - Will Fitzpatrick

Additional Production Support - Ashley Clivery

Commissioning Producer - Sam Proffitt

Commissioning Executive - Louise Kattenhorn

Commissioning Editor - Richard Maddock

Contributors include:

Professor Dick Hobbs, criminologist

Nick Reynolds, sculptor and son of the Great Train Robbery gang leader

Noel ‘Razor’ Smith, writer and former armed robber

Brian Stone, cellmate of Biggs

A Peanut & Crumb production for Radio 5 Live and BBC Sounds

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