SHARP-EYED viewers watching the BBC drama about the Novichok poisonings in Salisbury this week will have seen streets in Malmesbury used for the filming.

Dancing Ledge Productions, which made the three-part show, said they had decided not to film in the city itself, but instead to find other places which could double for Salisbury - and Malmesbury, with its own historic streets, fitted the bill.

Rafe Spall and Anne-Marie Duff starred in The Salisbury Poisonings which dramatised how former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia were targeted with the nerve agent Novichok in March 2018, and how the city reacted to becoming the centre of an international incident.

Amazingly, Sergei and Yulia Skripal survived the initial attack, but seven weeks later Charlie Rowley and his partner Dawn Sturgess also fell victim - and Ms Sturgess was fatally poisoned.

Rafe Spall has been praised by critics for his portrayal of Wiltshire police officer DS Nick Bailey, who was contaminated by Novichok when he visited the Skripals' home and whose family lost their house and possessions as a result. Now recovered, he was due to start back at work with the force this week.

The show was written by Adam Patterson and Declan Lawn, who said: "Extensive, meticulous research is at the heart of how we like to work and we’ve been overwhelmed by the generosity of the people of Salisbury who have opened up to us over the past few months and continue to do so.

"This is an extraordinary story full of ordinary heroes, the tale of how a community responded to an inconceivable event."