History’s Russ McCarroll and producer Stephen David tell Clive Whittingham about the ambitions and challenges of A+E Networks’ latest foray into factual drama.

Given the break-out success of the factual drama genre for previously documentary-focused US cablenets, a steady flow of new projects comes as no surprise.

But the latest from A+E Networks channel History actually grew from a traditional factual background. Sons of Liberty, a six-hour miniseries, is the “action bit” of the American Revolution, according to Russ McCarroll, VP of History programming and development.

Producer Stephen David had just finished a previous History doc project The Men Who Built America and given the success of Hatfields & McCoys, Vikings and other factual dramas for A+E, the search for a scripted project was very much underway.

“When Dirk Hoogstra [exec VP and general manager of History] and Nancy Dubuc [president and CEO of A+E Networks] saw the execution of The Men Who Built America, they both said it was basically a scripted series being done as a docu-drama,” says McCarroll. “They were already leaning the next project we were going to do towards being scripted.”

Inspiration came to David while listening to The Rolling Stones’ Paint It Black and he set his research department to work looking for a “1960s teen angst” element to the Revolutionary War. The resulting miniseries tells the story of revolutionaries Sam Adams, John Adams, Paul Revere, John Hancock and Joseph Warren, and the role they played in shaping America. “It had to feel contemporary. Russ’s big note on the project was, ‘No white wigs,’” David recalls.

The first rushes for Sons of Liberty were shown to the A+E top brass in a New York steakhouse while they were celebrating the Emmy nomination for The Men Who Built America and the scripted project was effectively greenlit immediately.

Given that History is still, at heart, a factual channel, despite Dubuc’s openly stated aim to make it a general entertainment network, is there a question of accuracy over these factual drama projects?

“As a History brand it’s important for us to be as accurate as we can be,” says McCarroll. “What we find is the further you go back into history the more difficult it is to nail down exactly what happened at a given moment in time. With the Revolution there are conflicting reports about things and you can consider those varied reports before you craft a script.” History has three in-house historians vetting the content for accuracy, McCarroll adds.

Kevin Costner’s role in Hatfields & McCoys has been part of a growing trend for Hollywood’s biggest feature film names to move into television drama. McCarroll says Sons of Liberty is “high-end drama, done on a drama budget,” allaying fears the genre is simply drama done on factual money.

Dean Morris (Breaking Bad, Under the Dome) and Marton Csokas, who is currently starring with Denzel Washington in big-screen movie The Equalizer, have both been cast.

“It’s a golden age for historical drama,” says McCarroll. “I feel like every show I watch has Steven Spielberg as exec producer. People have realised what Steven figured out a while back: history has a way of repeating itself and looking at the past can inform what’s going on today. Steven was ahead of that curve.”

Despite the US focus of the story, with the British obviously the bad guys, A+E has taken the series out to the international market and has high hopes for it. McCarroll says: “Sean Cohan [exec VP of international at A+E Networks] was immediately enthusiastic about the project. I thought it might be a tough sell, given how American it is, but revolution is a global phenomenon, it’s happened in almost every democratic country in the world. Sean is most enthusiastic about the UK, which makes me really confident about the international appeal, because if you think you can do well in the country that provides the bad guys in the show, you’re probably OK elsewhere.”

Given the turbulent political situation in other parts of the world, David also believes the project is well timed for an international audience. “This story is how most revolutions start,” he says. “Most countries have had revolutions of some kind and they don’t usually start for worthy reasons. They start as a fight for survival or because people want to make their lives better – not because they are trying to start their own country.”