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When Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe was detained in Iran in 2016, the reasons were unclear why she was held – but within 100 days, the basic story became known. Richard Ratcliffe, her spouse, organized a media briefing. He gathered 780,000 names on a campaign for her freedom, and presented a written appeal demanding the her freedom from the then PM David Cameron. As later revealed, was after private meetings with the Foreign Office in which civil servants maintained that the best thing, for the sake of Nazanin’s freedom and the security of her family members in Iran, was to keep quiet and let negotiations proceed.

“This amounted to state-sponsored hostage-taking,” notes Joseph Fiennes, who portrays Richard Ratcliffe in the four-episode BBC series the series Prisoner 951. “Such practices continue, and blameless individuals and families are utterly upended and scarred permanently. Having told this story, I look at people charged with crimes of something, and I am skeptical.”

During that July in 2016, it was clear that a serious mistake had been made. A dual national, Nazanin was kept in detention on accusations of spying, away from her little girl. She faced charges of seeking to destabilize the Iranian regime, of working for MI6, “empowering women” (in a questioning session) and obtaining funds unlawfully. The allegations appeared fabricated. Her job was with the news agency Reuters – however not within its journalism division, rather its non-profit branch – and she had appropriate purposes in Iran, bringing her child to meet her parents.

Were the allegations seemed suspicious to an unschooled audience, it raised greater concerns still in the Iranian diaspora, as actress Narges Rashidi, who plays Nazanin and was a native of Khorramabad in Iran (relocating to Germany when she was seven) confirms. “Everyone knew that there was no basis to the false pretexts they said she was being held.”

But the UK was fresh from Brexit, and the following day the message was delivered to Cameron, Theresa May became as PM. Media attention concentrated solely on political turmoil, and Johnson was appointed the top diplomat, leading to disastrous outcomes. Probably the most attention the couple got in this period was when Johnson uttered his inaccurate statements the next year, that she’d been “teaching people journalism, as I understand it”, which was untrue and strengthened the Tehran’s false charges, worsening her situation.

For all the information and sporadic discussion, which Richard Ratcliffe worked so hard to maintain while Nazanin fought to stay resilient, the emotional truth of this kidnapping is deeply disturbing to see brought to life in the show. Rashidi, known for Gangs of London, closely mimics Zaghari-Ratcliffe it’s astonishing. She credits her dialect coach: her real English-speaking accent is transatlantic and she is based in LA.

Rashidi viewed all materials: conversations featuring Zaghari-Ratcliffe, and the heartstopping but understated reunion with her daughter. Additionally, rare recordings surface: for some reason the occasion of Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s capture at the airport has been posted online. “A brief clip; she had no idea that she was being filmed.”

In the drama, she is walking a fine line, suspended between the belief in her righteousness and the uncertainty that, should you be detained over no reason, where does it lead? With hindsight, that she would be in incarcerated for six long years, it is profoundly upsetting to see all this play out in the expressions she shows. Her fight not to respond excessively; her vain effort to oppose the turmoil of official might. “To me,” Rashidi says, “that is a very different Nazanin to half a decade on. I witnessed an individual extremely petrified and quite vulnerable, not knowing what was occurring to her. I saw her resilience subsequently, following this entire experience.”

Fiennes “had the privilege of meeting with Richard”, he says. “Such access is rare with the character you act, and he’s a forensic accountant. The tenacity, where you get to the place of ‘Show me the {bloody receipt|actual proof|concrete evidence’, is part of his nature.” It becomes a heartbreaking experience too, as this somewhat conventional man gradually then quickly becomes disillusioned in the authorities he relied on: advisors, civil servants, the administration, other mainstream figures. “He believed the UK authorities would manage the situation, but this proved incorrect. He was just lied to, lied to and lied to.”

Ratcliffe dealt with five foreign ministers during the years she was incarcerated: multiple appointees. The couple would consistently remain the last thing on the minister’s to-do list after they’d settled into the post, and once they examined the predicament, their time in office was over. In the drama, it takes Ratcliffe a while to see that “there’s a military industrial complex operating here,” Fiennes says, “and it’s not transparent. It works behind official channels, and here is a household that became entangled in it.”

There’s a bit in which Ratcliffe enters angrily the office of Cleverly (he served as the official for the relevant area), “and unleashes a tirade. He really does unravel. He looks disorganized. He is engaged in the eighteenth day without food, he has hit the lowest point. Yet it requires much for Ratcliffe to reach that stage. {He’s not liberated|He isn