A new TV show is being made about an East Lancashire pastor who used to be a gangster and drug addict.
‘The Pastor’ will be based on the life of Burnley’s Pastor Mick Fleming, who left a life of crime and set up a charity after having a religious experience.
Speaking to the Lancashire Telegraph, he said: “The show been in the making for a while and has garnered a lot of interest.
“It’s going to be an eight-part series and it’s going to be quite colossal.”
Actors and writers William Ash (Waterloo Road) and Andrew Knott (Gavin and Stacey) have been working with Mick over the last few months and are now ready to start writing the script.
Pastor Mick says the eight-part series isn’t for the faint-hearted.
Raped by a stranger as a child, Mick’s childhood trauma propelled him into the criminal underworld of 1990s Britain, and to life as a dangerous gangster and drug dealer.
One day, about to shoot a man, he had a spiritual epiphany which led him to God, and a mission to serve the UK’s most vulnerable.
On his journey serving the homeless and those suffering from poverty and mental health issues, Pastor Mick ran into the man who sexually assaulted him as a child.
Instead of murdering him, as he had long fantasised about, Mick helped the man recover from his alcoholism and reunite with his family.
Mick said: “It’s going to be based on my life and my story but with their own artistic license to make it into a TV show.
“It’s not going to be a Christian show. It is going to be hard-hitting because that is what my life was.
“But in showing how I have found God it will also hopefully show people that you can change If you’ve had a bad start
“It will show that you can have hope if you have faith.”
Mick said the script writers will have to “tone down” his story as it is “so crazy” that viewers wouldn’t believe it.
He said: “I’ve met the future king, I’m going to be made bishop this year alone. It’s been a life of extremes and people wouldn’t believe it.
“I am shocked that people want to tell my story. People will see the bad parts of my life but see that I have changed because of my faith.”
‘Top Boy’ director Brady Hood is already in talks with Herd to direct the TV series.
“It looks like Brady going to do it which will be pretty special as he is one of the biggest up and coming directors in the world,” said Mick.
While a cast is set to be announced Mick says he would love Morecambe-based heavyweight champion boxer, Tyson Fury, to play him in the show.
He said: “In a dream world I would like Tyson to play me.
“I know he’s never acted before but he has the same mental health traits as me and seems to cope with them in the same way as I do – except I’m not the heavyweight champion of the world.
“I can see that he want to live a better life and not be trapped in that darkness.
“It would be amazing if he finished his boxing career and came and did this – you never know, he could choose to.”
Pastor Mick first shot to fame during the 2020 pandemic, when his work delivering food and necessities to desperate families in Burnley became the subject of a BBC news report watched by 50 million people.
Pastor Mick is publishing his autobiography Blown Away: From Drug Dealer to Life Bringer, on September 15.
Pastor Mick will also share his life story at a free London event organised by SPCK called ‘Made to Rise’ on the September 22.
You can buy register for free tickets to the talk by visiting the Eventbrite website.
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