In 2019, a man used a narwhal tusk to fight off a terrorist on London Bridge, preventing him from hurting more members of the public.
The man in question was civil servant Darryn Frost, who grabbed the tusk from the wall when he heard a commotion and was promptly hailed a ‘hero’.
Tonight, the new series of Bill Bailey’s Extraordinary Portraits begins on BBC One, and the first episode shines a spotlight on Darryn’s incredible life-saving actions.
He sees himself immortalised in a sculpture by artist Nick Elphick, and he understandably becomes emotional as the finished product is revealed, capturing his ‘confused, conflicted and proud’ self who bravely confronted the perilous situation seven years ago.
‘These are ordinary people going about their business, going about their job, finding themselves in these situations which are, as the title would suggest, extraordinary,’ former Strictly Come Dancing winner Bill told Metro.
‘Often these are situations that they find themselves in through circumstance, and indeed, in his [Darryn’s] case, he just happened to be there. He just happened to be in the middle of what turned out to be this, this quite terrifying terrorist attack.’
In 2019, at a prisoner rehabilitation conference at Fishmongers’ Hall just off London Bridge, terrorist Usman Khan went on a deadly rampage, which killed two people and wounded three others.
After hearing noises coming from the floor below them, Darryn rushed to the scene armed with a narwhal tusk from the wall.
His and others’ intervention helped subdue the attacker and keep the death count from escalating.
Khan was shot by armed officers after threatening to blow up a suicide vest, which turned out to be a hoax. The attacker died on the scene.
Bill explained what it was like speaking to Darryn about his ordeal, as the heroic civilian was able to recount what happened with ‘incredible detail’.
‘Sometimes people don’t remember. They don’t want to remember. There’s something about us, almost like a survival instinct, which blocks out that sort of horror,’ Bill said.
‘But with him, he was able to recall it in great detail, which in fact was very useful for the police. He said it was like in 4K. It was like his brain was recording this whole incident in incredible fine forensic detail.
‘He was amazing to talk to and a very powerful story to start [the series] with.’
This series of Extraordinary Portraits consists of six episodes, with each instalment focusing on a different inspirational person.
Another episode centres on a woman called Seema Misra, who was wrongly jailed during the Post Office’s Horizon IT scandal.
She was one of hundreds of sub-postmasters and sub-postmistresses incorrectly prosecuted after faulty software implied that money was missing from their branch accounts.
Bill emphasised how inspired he felt by Seema, who endured ‘an enormous toll’ on her and her family following years of the Post Office scandal, and ‘yet she still remains positive’.
‘She’s still got a positive outlook, she was always smiling and positive,’ he said.
‘Honestly, it gets bandied around a lot, you know, but these people are an inspiration. It tends to be a word which is overused, but genuinely in these cases, these people are.’
When speaking back in February, Metro asked Bill if he thought the government was doing enough to support people like Seema, who have been affected by the Post Office scandal.
‘Well, I would have to say no, because they’re still fighting. They’re still trying to get compensation even now, after all this time,’ he answered.
‘They’ve been through so much, and they’ve been really put through the wringer.’
What can we expect from each episode of Extraordinary Portraits?
There are six episodes of the new series of Extraordinary Portraits, here’s what to expect:
- Episode 1: We see Darryn, who used a narwhal tusk to fight of the London Bridge terrorist attacker, get made into art.
- Episode 2: Eddie, the UK’s oldest female Ironman triathlete, has her likeness painted.
- Episode 3: Wildlife sanctuary Lindsay is matched with celebrity artist Ricky Wilson.
- Episode 4: Brothers Jordan and Cian, who lost their mum to frontotemporal dementia are the sitters.
- Episode 5: Seema, a sub-postmistress wrongly jailed, tells her story and sees herself immortalised in art.
- Episode 6: Two sisters who share an amazing bond, after one donated her womb to the other, are painted.
The comedian continued: ‘Imagine if you were the postmaster or postmistress in some of these towns and villages. They were very much the hub of community. My local one here in West London, everyone knows him. We come in, there’s a bit of a chat.
‘The psychological damage that it did, suggesting that people are dishonest, is worse in a way than the money.
‘I know that having to pay back the money is one thing, but the shame that they had to deal with of being painted as criminals was awful. The kids suffered in school – she suffered, the husband suffered. I don’t think you can ever compensate really for that.’
In episode four of the BBC programme, Bill meets two brothers, Jordan and Cian Adams, who suffered the loss of their mum to frontotemporal dementia (FTD). She was 52 at the time, and they were teenagers.
Since then, the brothers have found out that they carry the same faulty gene and will begin to develop the same FTD symptoms around the time that their mum did.
Their story resonated with Bill, who lost his Mum when he was in his 30s.
‘It struck a chord,’ he shared. ‘You always think your mum’s going to be there. She was relatively young by today’s standards, in her early 70s. It was a bit of a big loss, a big shock.’
If there’s one message that Bill has taken away from the sitters he met on the series, it’s the importance of living in the moment.
‘We just have to grasp the present and really make the most of it, because you never know what’s around the corner,’ he stated.
Extraordinary Portraits airs tonight at 7:30pm on BBC One.
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