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''London Spy'' is a British-American five-part drama television serial created and written by Tom Rob Smith that aired on
BBC Two BBC Two is a British free-to-air Public service broadcasting in the United Kingdom, public broadcast television channel owned and operated by the BBC. It is the corporation's second flagship channel, and it covers a wide range of subject matte ...
from 9 November until 7 December 2015. It was aired on Netflix in 2018.


Plot

''London Spy'' begins as the story of two young men: Danny (Ben Whishaw)—gregarious, hedonistic, and romantic—falls in love with Alex (Edward Holcroft)—asocial, enigmatic, and brilliant. Just as they discover how perfect they are for each other, Alex disappears. Danny finds Alex's body. They lived very different lives: Danny is from a world of clubbing and youthful excess; Alex, it turns out, worked for the
Secret Intelligence Service The Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), commonly known as MI6 (MI numbers, Military Intelligence, Section 6), is the foreign intelligence service of the United Kingdom, tasked mainly with the covert overseas collection and analysis of Human i ...
. Although utterly ill-equipped to take on the world of espionage, Danny decides to fight for the truth about Alex's death.


Cast


Main

* Ben Whishaw as Daniel "Danny" Edward Holt * Jim Broadbent as Scottie * Edward Holcroft as Alistair "Alex" Turner * Samantha Spiro as Detective Taylor * Lorraine Ashbourne as Mrs. Turner / Nanny * David Hayman as Mr. Turner / Groundsman * Clarke Peters as the American * Charlotte Rampling as Frances Turner *
Mark Gatiss Mark Gatiss (; born 17 October 1966) is an English actor, comedian, screenwriter, director, producer and novelist. Best known for his acting work on stage and screen as well as for co-creating television shows with Steven Moffat, he has received ...
as Rich * Harriet Walter as Claire * James Fox as James *
Adrian Lester Adrian Anthony Lester (born Anthony Harvey on 14 August 1968) is a British actor. He is the recipient of a Laurence Olivier Award, an Evening Standard Theatre Award and a Critics' Circle Theatre Award for his work on the London stage, an ...
as Professor Marcus Shaw * Riccardo Scamarcio as Doppelganger


Recurring

* Josef Altin as Pavel * Zrinka Cvitešić as Sara * Nicolas Chagrin as Charles Turner * Richard Cunningham as Danny's Lawyer * Michaela Coel as Journalist


Production

The series was commissioned by Janice Hadlow and Polly Hill, and produced by Guy Heeley for Working Title Television. The
executive producer Executive producer (EP) is one of the top positions in the production of media. Depending on the medium, the executive producer may be concerned with management accounting or associated with legal issues (like copyrights or royalties). In film ...
s were Juliette Howell, Tim Bevan, Eric Fellner, and Polly Hill. Filming began in 2014 in London, West London Film Studios,
Kent Kent is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South East England. It is bordered by Essex across the Thames Estuary to the north, the Strait of Dover to the south-east, East Sussex to the south-west, Surrey to the west, and Gr ...
, on the Isle of Grain and at
Dartford Dartford is the principal town in the Borough of Dartford, Kent, England. It is located south-east of Central London and is situated adjacent to the London Borough of Bexley to its west. To its north, across the Thames Estuary, is Thurrock in ...
. The story was inspired by the death of Gareth Williams, an MI6 agent found dead under similar, mysterious circumstances.


Release

The first episode premiered in the U.K. on
BBC Two BBC Two is a British free-to-air Public service broadcasting in the United Kingdom, public broadcast television channel owned and operated by the BBC. It is the corporation's second flagship channel, and it covers a wide range of subject matte ...
at 9pm on Monday 9 November 2015, and the serial concluded 7 December 2015. In the U.S., it premiered on BBC America starting 21 January 2016. In 2018 it was carried on Netflix.


Episodes


Critical reception

Reviewing Episode One for ''
The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...
'', Lucy Mangan called it "an unutterably delicious, satisfying dish," with "Jim Broadbent, in fully teddy-bear-carrying-a-switchblade mode.." and Whishaw "the most powerful actor ever made out of thistledown and magic." ''
The Daily Telegraph ''The Daily Telegraph'', known online and elsewhere as ''The Telegraph'', is a British daily broadsheet conservative newspaper published in London by Telegraph Media Group and distributed in the United Kingdom and internationally. It was found ...
''s Jasper Rees was unconvinced: "Whishaw's intense fixity of purpose could do nothing to defibrillate his DOA dialogue..." The same newspaper's Harry Mount gave a critical review of episode 3 which he regarded as "wearily unconvincing" with "long spells of ennui." After Episode 4 had screened, several prominent critics agreed that, whatever they thought of its story, the series possessed a haunting quality. Gabriel Tate of ''The Daily Telegraph'' wrote: "''London Spy'', has been adored and abhorred. Its ambition has delighted and infuriated, its obfuscation has intrigued and frustrated. It is, if nothing else, a singular vision..." A.A. Gill of ''
The Sunday Times ''The Sunday Times'' is a British Sunday newspaper whose circulation makes it the largest in Britain's quality press market category. It was founded in 1821 as ''The New Observer''. It is published by Times Newspapers Ltd, a subsidiary of N ...
'' wrote: "This is a strange, inexplicably compelling story. There are vast lacunas in the plot, filled with the unblinking performance of Ben Whishaw, made more memorable because most of it is done without words. Everyone else revolves around him, but he remains essentially a hole at the centre of the doughnut. It is a characterisation of great depth, in a plot that is nothing more than a series of enigmas, presented enigmatically." Jack Seale in ''
The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...
'' called it an "intoxicating series" with "a beguiling emotional aesthetic." "It was inevitable that, when prosaic explanation finally had to intrude on all this elliptical artistry, the spell was partly broken. A thriller hasn't so boldly made the genre beautiful since ''The Shadow Line''. ''London Spy'' has lived in the gap between plot and subtext – between what it's about, and what it's really about. It's really about self-knowledge, and how lovers try to know each other while lying about themselves." Following the screening of the final episode, Gabriel Tate wrote in ''The Guardian'' that the series had "a somewhat daft and implausible ending, but there was still much to enjoy, mostly from the brilliant Ben Whishaw." Benji Wilson in ''The Daily Telegraph'' called it "wonderful and infuriating in equal measure..Has there ever been a television series that's frustrated as much as ''London Spy'' (BBC 2)? Over five weeks this contemporary thriller has scaled giddy heights and then plumbed ludicrous depths, gone from being completely gripping to turgid as hell, thrown up single scenes of startling brilliance then followed them with some preposterous self-indulgence... ''London Spy'' potentially great script was in desperate need of some doughty editing." ''The Guardian'' Mark Lawson named the series one of the best shows of 2015. The series was nominated for the British Academy Television Award for Best Mini-Series, the GLAAD Media Award for Outstanding TV Movie or Limited Series. and the Royal Television Society Award for Mini-Series.


References


External links

* * *
London Spy
' on BBC America * {{IMDb title, 4108134 2015 British television series debuts 2015 British television series endings 2010s British LGBTQ-related drama television series 2010s British mystery television series BBC mystery television shows BBC television dramas British English-language television shows Gay-related television shows MI6 in fiction Television series by Working Title Television Television shows set in London American spy thriller television series 2015 LGBTQ-related television