Gary Oldman and the cast of Slow Horses are on this week's Radio Times
We speak to Gary Oldman about the role of a lifetime - and why he'll never give up on Jackson Lamb.
There has been a great deal of excitement in the RT offices this week - spy drama Slow Horses is back! I read the first Mick Herron book in 2011 and was hooked. More than a decade on and three TV series later, I'll say this - I think Slow Horses is the best thing on TV today. Probably the best thing on TV in the last ten years, all thanks to Gary Oldman and his co-stars.
In this week's issue of Radio Times magazine, Oldman tells Mark Lawson that the show feels more like a theatre company and that they know each other so well it makes their jobs easy. The brilliant Saskia Reeves echoes that point. These are all actors at the top of their game, with razor-sharp scripts by Will Smith, who worked on The Thick of It. Drama is subjective, but no one I've recommended Slow Horses to has ever come back to me to say they didn't like it.
In the interview, Lawson compares Oldman's character, Jackson Lamb, with his portrayal of another great fictional spy, John Le Carré's George Smiley. There are similarities, but for me Lamb is the heir to another great insouciant spy - Len Deighton's Harry Palmer.
Seeing Michael Caine in that role gave all glasses-wearing teenagers hope that they could be cool (well, this one at least). Jackson Lamb, might give equal succour to the curry-eating, flatulent middle-aged men. Perhaps not, but the fact that Caine and Oldman were born only two miles apart in south-east London suggests there might be something in the water.
I know that it's frustrating when a series as good as Slow Horses is on a streaming service. And I'm also aware that many readers can't afford to subscribe to such services, or choose not to. But when TV is this good, you could do what I did when I grew up without a TV set. Invite yourself round to someone who has Apple TV+. Jackson Lamb would.
The latest issue of Radio Times is out now – subscribe here.
Also in this week's Radio Times:
- Kevin McCloud celebrates 25 years of Grand Designs - and wants to keep building
- Comedian Jack Whitehall says that becoming a father has changed him for the better
- The Post Office campaigner Jo Hamilton is still fighting for justice in the scandal that rocked Britain
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Slow Horses is available to stream on Apple TV+ from 4th September 2024 – sign up to Apple TV+ now.
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