Reviewed by Dave Putson
Are you a “whodunnit” aficionado? A viewer of psychological thrillers? Well, your average spy drama thriller is all of this. Most, in recent times have been based upon various authors’ material. The most successful over an extended period being John Le Carre. A former MI5 officer who wrote his first successful spy novel, `The Spy Who Came in From the Cold` in the early 1960s.
When published, this was apparently so realistic that the Polish security services expended considerable resources seeking out the “mole” in their organisation. It maybe was way too serious as it dealt with real and serious circumstances, in fiction form, but about the Cold War between the West and East’s different political institutions, and their real, and also intellectual battles for dominance over the world no less!
So Slow Horses is a modern day, at first blush, a kindly homage to TV adaptations of John Le Carre’s canon of spy novels. However, it is brought into the modern day. No longer are there discussions of “the Circus” (MI5 Headquarters) so much as the more modern digitally enhanced with sophisticated, IT everywhere, in “The Park”.
The people who deal with all of the murky spy craft are no longer “lamplighters” working in all the dark and murky areas, they are now simply “the dogs”.
And where Le Carre’s Smiley and company were operating out of `the Circus` these participants are rejects removed from `The Park’s` sphere of influence, not sacked, but simply placed in the aptly named `Slough House`, far removed from the centre of intelligence work. Their biggest failure, it would seem, are to be normal human beings, if still overloaded with the ideas of exceptionalism that endorses and populates the “intelligence” services vastly more that it warrants.
Where Le Carre’s spooks were taken and presented in a vastly more serious mode, it was still the time of the Cold War after all. The Slow Horses are modern creatures of intelligence, but sadly denied resources, by “The Park”, to appropriately show just how average they are as human beings and spooks.
What raises this series above the average TV spy show (and a huge improvement on the consummately naff BBC `Spooks`) is that it includes a level of humour that often does lead to laugh out loud moments. It borrows from, but never comes close to the bone-crushing violence or the bleak humour of “Killing Eve”. There is no extravagant over the top, sublime characters such a Jodie Comer’s superb portrayal of the `Killing Eve` assassin, Villanelle, counterposed by the equally astonishing Sandra Oh as “Eve”.
It also manages to offer direct references to actual real life spook events, the stand-out one being the murder of Georgi Markov who was “tap stabbed” with a poison-tipped umbrella on London Bridge in 1977.
However, `Slow Horses` has a collection of “lead” characters that can pit their serious side chops against anything Alec Guinness managed as Smiley, but they also come close to matching the dark humour of `Killing Eve`, not by the over-the-top outrageousness, but by deadpan delivery of dry, dark humour lines that pass you by very quickly before the next one smacks you full in the face.
It is a delicious and modern blend of Le Carre’s `Smiley` series, deadly serious Cold War espionage, and the flamboyant over-the-top, laugh-a-minute `Killing Eve` (I have to provide a rider here, I recommended it as a really funny programme to a then friend, his wife immediately banned it from their TV for having far too much violence. The humour clearly passed her by!)
So why, if it is such a good follow-on series, should it be mentioned at all, it will obviously garner a good following? Well, for all his knowing, hugely smart, but burnt to his core after “his joes were found out and dispensed with” Jackson Lamb (Gary Oldman), senior at “Slough House”. He is barely managing to keep it together, and having to tolerate his collection of failed and only average MI5 officers, he is blessed with making some of the pithiest coruscating comments on his colleagues in such a very “old school, non-pc” manner that the very least you should muster is a forced smile!
The closest you get to any centrist characters (the only lefties that appear in Le Carre are those devious, “to be beaten at all costs” Cold War communists!!) are the marvelously underplayed, lost in love with her previous, but now dead, boss of MI5, Catherine Standish (Saskia Reeves) who seems to have become, in spook terms, “a bit wet”, but is still very astute.
And then of course there is Louisa Guy (Rosalind Eleazar) who is desperate to prove she is more than competent. However, she has to show almost the entire range of human emotion, from lonely single spook woman, knowing her power as a woman, to losing her new partner and fellow spook and in one scene, bereft and tearful after his death, and then suddenly switching her emotions to spook “off” and back to work, with a subtle elegance and panache.
Sadly, there is no media referenced as such, just huge amounts of modern IT usage, no press either, otherwise presumably the series would become even more complex and quite possibly a little too dense to give an overview of modern ordinary day spook life. It also in its way reflects the control the right wing has over the media, with no story being aired that may not be to the interests of the right-wing government and departments endeavors. Thus, “no story there then….”
So, whilst it is very funny and hugely watchable, with an excellent cast throughout, the issue I have with `Slow Horses` is, as with Le Carre’s “Smiley”, all the characters still have that right wing collective view common within military intelligence, espousing, even with these “average Joe’s” the idea of their exceptionalism.
With the programme being based around the “Slough House” rejects, it does manage to show some human traits, if still right-wing nonsense. And going along with that is the casual disregard in its serious moments, of just how quick, basic and simply oppositional lives can be snuffed out!
Does it capture the essence of real characters – yes! With probably a true reflection of those inhabiting the intelligence arena in the modern day. The same self-belief with an absence of self-awareness of their own human frailties, and if THEY required, a complete disregard for human life complete with an emotional failure that could ever get them over that boundary towards a more sensitive, caring and empathetic left-leaning humanity.
Exceptional TV, exceptionally portraying some sad, unknowingly cold, and ruthlessly self-interested, self-serving individuals, seemingly thrown together, but stuck between being decent human beings and successful spooks.
