Colin Morgan headlines Irish thriller The Boy That Never Was on Alibi and it turns out the project was a labour of love for the Armagh-born actor, who has described it as: “a special experience.”
Colin and his co-star Toni O’Rourke (Fran the Man, Cold Courage) portray grieving parents Harry and Robin Lonergan in the four-parter, which was filmed over 23 days in Morocco and 13 days in Ireland.
The opening episode introduces the struggling artists living in the bustling Moroccan port city Essaouira with their three-year-old child Dillon when their idyllic world is shattered after their son disappears and is presumed dead following an earthquake.
Three years later, Robin and Harry are desperately trying to rebuild their lives in Dublin when things take a twist after Harry believes he sees his boy at a busy train station in the capital.
Harry’s desire to seek out the truth about what he thinks he saw soon spirals into obsession, threatening his marriage to Robin as everything they ever believed about each other is cast into doubt. But the question is, why is Robin determined to stop him from discovering more about the child at the station?
Here, Colin explains more…
Colin Morgan on the premise of The Boy That Never Was
The series is based on the 2014 best selling debut novel of the same name by Karen Perry - the pen name of writing duo Paul Perry and Karen Gillece.
“It traverses timelines between the past, when things were good, and the present when things aren't so good,” says Belfast and The Fall star Colin. “It explores mental health and grief and what it means to love and to be a mum and a dad and the visceral imperative that a mother or a father has to protect their children.
“If that was taken away from you, what lengths would you go to, to get it back again? The show encompasses all of that complicated material.”
On Harry and Robin’s relationship and loss
The creative team had six weeks of pre-production before filming commenced, which is when director Hannah Quinn (Vikings: Valhalla, The Gone), Colin and Toni began working on the love story between Harry and Robin at the heart of this drama.
“Love is often behind people’s motivations in life – and sometimes the inexplicable things we do in life are because we love too much,” explains Colin.
“There's a strong love between Harry and Robin and they feel that they are meant to be together. They believe in fate. I think people understand what it is to love unconditionally, especially if you're a parent. Everyone understands and fears the thought of losing someone close to you.”
On playing a grieving parent
Colin describes the story as “harrowing and challenging,” and says that it required that he and Toni “delve into the depths of a man and a woman’s greatest fear and how you deal with it.”
He goes on to explain that this is also part of the attraction of the role for him: “That’s what you look for as an actor. You look for a challenge and you enter into a project with a group of creative people to find the answers together and to hopefully capture it on screen.”
He adds: “[It] had a lot of territory that scared me and I knew that if we embarked with a group of collaborators and creatives, and supported one another, we would hopefully get it together.”
On who Harry is
An artist, a father, a husband and a man unable to let go, Colin believes “Harry's a bit of a dreamer and an adventurer. He’s someone who goes for an opportunity when he sees it - without a lot of planning or much thought. This is the young Harry that we meet when we first see him in Morocco. We meet him at a time when life has worked out the way he wanted it to. He's an artist. He's creative. He's an individual who has never felt at home in Ireland. He finds an exoticism and attraction towards Morocco as a place of escapism.”
On Harry’s relationship with his wife and child
Despite Harry’s personal preferences for his life, when he becomes a father, he loves his wife and son wholeheartedly.
Colin believes that Harry is most definitely not a reluctant father. When the opportunity comes his way he finds it spectacular and he's happy. When his son is born, the years that Robin, he and Dillon have together are the things that dreams are made of. It's just a different dream now.
“He's a man who has gone with the flow and accepted things as they are on his terms. When things are taken away beyond his terms in the form of a tragedy, it is hard to let go. He believes and hopes that happiness still exists in exactly the way it was before.”
On the filming locations and schedules
Shot in Morocco and Ireland over four weeks, Colin relished the challenge of filming in two different locations and traversing two timelines. Impressively, the entire production was filmed on location with no studio set builds. Most of the Moroccan shoot took place in Essaouira, a surfing village on the West Coast of the country with two weeks of filming taking place in Casablanca.
“Not a lot of shows have this level of contrast between cultures and countries,” says Colin, who became a child star BBC fantasy drama Merlin which ran from 2008 until 2012, before going on to forge out an impressive adult acting career with standout roles in The Fall, Humans and Kenneth Branagh’s Oscar-winning film Belfast. “This show is exciting and very visually satisfying to watch and features both locations. Morocco represents vibrancy, colour, spice, heat, adventure, freedom for Harry.
“Ireland has some of these qualities, but Harry is attracted to Morocco in other ways. Harry leads the way there. It is his dream to live there, and it says a lot about Robin that she goes there with him.
“Their dream is quite literally shattered by a natural disaster. When they return to Ireland, Harry has to embrace the life they left behind. Ireland represents something difficult for him.”
On the cast and crew collaboration that made it all come together
Kenza Chaabi (Ghosts of Beirut, No Man’s Land) was the costume designer for the Moroccan element of the story, while Suzanne Keogh (Love, Rosie, Disenchanted) was costume designer for the Irish chapters.
“I can't be Harry without the amazing costume, makeup and hair team,” praises Colin. “This has been a collaborative project right from the word go. That's something I've relished.”
He adds that: “As an actor you always want to come to the table with your ideas and also be okay about them either working or not working. It takes an open and creative director to be brave to do that and to listen to everyone. Hannah does that every single time. She also has her own visual eye and taste and instincts so it's been a special experience.”
On the mystery of whether or not Dillion is alive
As well as being an emotive story, The Boy That Never Was is also a mystery with three main questions at its heart - Is Dillon alive? Is Harry having a mental breakdown? What is motivating Robin's behaviour?
“The mystery for the audience is in discerning between what is real and a father's delusional hope for happiness,” shares Colin. “The viewer goes on this back and forth along with Harry and Robin across four episodes.”
Colin adds that viewers may: “get a gut punch because it represents every parent's greatest fear - the loss of a child. If you're a parent, a son or daughter, you’ll understand it. This show explores the importance of family and love and connection. And it explores how the severance of that, or the threatened severance of that in the most unplanned awful circumstances of a natural disaster, can uproot everyone.”
The Boy That Never Was debuted in Ireland in September 2024 where it proved a hit with audiences and critics.
It will air in the UK on Tuesday October 29 at 9pm on Alibi with a double-bill, concluding on the following Tuesday with a final double-bill.
