The Making of ‘The Atom: A Love Affair’; A Long-Held Dream Becoming a Reality

Public engagement Social 6 December 2023

In the mid-2000s, arts graduate Vicki Lesley was unhappy in TV; stuck creating morally grey TV programmes for the likes of Sky & Channel 4, such as ASBO Fever, which relied on taking advantage of the less fortunate. However, in 2006, she had an idea to make a real difference to the world, and thus ‘The Atom: A Love Affair’ was born.

Let’s go back to 2006: climate change was just entering the media as a real issue, Greenpeace were campaigning strongly for clean energy, and the Blair government was in the middle of a review about nuclear power. Vicki had a surface level understanding of the nuclear industry – in that she knew it existed and created nuclear power. The more she investigated it, the more she realised that the conversations around nuclear were nearly always at the heart of a fierce debate between two strong-minded factions. So, she raised £500 through crowdfunding (before crowdfunding was a thing) and started making a series of 13 short films about nuclear power.

For Vicki, this just fed her appetite further resulting in a deep dive into the historic & social side of nuclear. But passion alone was not enough, armed with her huge concentration of books from the 1970s and 80s, Vicki sought out experts.

Between 2012 and 2015, the bulk of the interviews and filming was completed, wherein Vicki spoke at length with nuclear scientists, historians, social scientists, and many more to form a picture of the historical and social context of the industry. Over the course of filming, she met some wonderfully interesting people (such as Director-General of the Nuclear Energy Agency Bill Magwood and anti-nuclear politician Tony Benn (pictured below)), learned about nuclear power and, most importantly, got to understand people.

Loaded with information about nuclear, the first edit of the film was over 4 and half hours long! So, from 2015 to 2019, her days were filled with the long slog of cutting the film down post-production (not to mention another last handful of interviews, as if it wasn’t already filled to the brim with information). During this time, the metaphor of the atom being the romantic hero in a love affair with the human race was floated as a bit of a joke… and then it stuck! The working title was quickly changed to ‘The Atom: A Love Affair’ for the final version produced in 2019.

When her film was booked in cinemas in June 2020, Vicki was ecstatic! However, it all fell apart when a pesky virus turned up in March, and cinemas across the country were forced to close. The film was released instead on a home cinema site, but Vicki always intended for this film to be watched together and to inspire conversation and interest and intrigue across the audience. Virtual screenings were the next best thing and allowed Vicki to see the audience response. Across the board, it was positive, but Vicki soon noticed an interesting trend; those who were pro-nuclear viewed the film as such, and those who were anti-nuclear viewed it as anti! It really proved her beliefs that the most important aspect of nuclear is the social side, and that our relationship with nuclear really is like a love affair!

Overall, I think Vicki said it best: nuclear is complex and so it really makes a nice metaphor for how difficult everything in life really is!