Boxing Clever: Slow Horses
Every week, Michael Telfer – aka Mike TV – recommends a box set to crack open. This week’s choice is a cross between Tinker Tailor and The Office
If television spy dramas make you picture sharply dressed agents living in the shadows, seamlessly exchanging files in airports or placing high-stakes bets in casinos while casually smoking, then you are in for a change of pace with Apple TV’s Slow Horses.
Apart from the smoking, of which there is plenty, the main characters eschew many of the traits you might expect to find in a Le Carré adaptation, or indeed hope to find in those tasked with guarding our nation’s secrets.
They are impulsive, reckless, sometimes incompetent and nearly always damaged goods.
The series is based on the brilliant books by Newcastle-born Mick Herron, which follow the inhabitants of Slough House, a run-down office above a Chinese takeaway where MI5 agents that screw up (nicknamed Slow Horses) are sent to serve out their careers in administrative purgatory until they quit or die of boredom.
They are ‘managed’ by Jackson Lamb (Gary Oldman), a cold war legend of the service who now exists on whisky, knock-off cigarettes, suspicious-looking takeaways and the unhappiness of the unlucky agents assigned to him.
Fortunately for us, life is never as boring in Slough House as it’s supposed to be…
The first five seasons closely follow Herron’s books, and find our accident-prone heroes caught up with far-right groups, Russian sleeper agents, terrorist attacks and endless power battles within MI5.
Gary Oldman is incredible as the cantankerous Lamb, and he is blessed with some of the best put downs ever shown on television, and some of the finest flatulence.
Jack Lowden stars as River Cartwright, a young agent who is transferred to Slough House after a botched training exercise but still believes he’ll make it back to Regent Park some day.
Elsewhere in the stellar cast Kristin Scott Thomas is chilling as the icy head of MI5 Diana Taverner, Saskia Reeves is perfectly cast as Lamb’s long-suffering assistant and Jonathan Pryce plays River’s grandfather and retired spook David Cartwright.
It’s no surprise that a show that pairs Apple’s chequebook with Herron’s novels is worth watching, but Slow Horses is even better than fans of the books (including myself) could ever have dreamed.
The only slight downside is that like many UK shows, each season is only six episodes. Thankfully Apple knock them out more often than Jackson Lamb changes his socks, and having released five seasons in just over three years, they have now shared the teaser for the sixth season, which will drop this September.
Which gives you plenty of time to catch up with one of the best shows currently on television.
Slow Horses is on Apple TV.