CREDIT: WTTV Ltd - Joss Barratt
REVIEWTV
LONDON SPY
☆☆☆☆☆
Ben Whishaw in a gay spy thriller? What’s not to
like? The cute and slightly broody looking Q from
the Bond franchise in a new 5 part programme, in
part inspired by the Gareth Williams case of the
body in the bag, and in part by a 1960’s CIA
handbook about covering up a murder by using an
accident. Right up my street and no mistaking.
It starts with Danny, played by Whishaw, a 20something in dead-end jobs who parties, flat shares
and doesn't have a steady boyfriend - a bit of an
every-gay, nothing special, just living his life. A
chance meeting early one morning with the
enigmatic Joe/Alex/Alistair (Edward Holcroft) and
suddenly love creeps into his life.
Joe is secretive with no family, a job he doesn't
want to talk about and Danny laps it up - even when
Joe fronts up and becomes Alex. Danny has a close
friend in Scottie (Jim Broadbent playing an older
gay in quite a respectable way), and confides in him
about Alex and then after 8 months, the two finally
meet. Fast forward to a possible romantic weekend
away, and suddenly Alex disappears. Danny and
Scottie have a heart to heart and Scottie’s past as a
spy comes out, along with his suspicions about Alex
and his area of work.
Danny then receives a mysterious package at work,
and so begins a game of cat and mouse. A key to
Alex’s exclusive apartment complex leads Danny to
discover a decaying body, a sex dungeon (but in the
attic) and his boyfriend’s possible secret life. After
questioning by the police and the assumption the
body is that of his boyfriend, yet another identity
comes out and Alex becomes Alistair, together with
a whole other life and a family.
Episode 2 introduces the iconic Charlotte Rampling
in a role made for her - queen of her very own
castle, a model of decorum and a woman of few
words, but all packaged with a tinge of menace.
Enter Alistair's family. Where is this going? Who
was Alex? Is he really dead? Why is Danny being
watched, and by whom?
The next 3 episodes promise more unanswered
questions before the finale, but I intend to savour
the acting skills of Ben, and the flashbacks to his
handsome and taciturn boyfriend Joe/Alex/Alistair
- along with Jim Broadbent's superior character,
who for me, reminds everyone that gay life doesn't
end at 40… If you like your spy thrillers with a
realistic edge, watch this.
CHRIS JONES
THEGAYUK | ISSUE 17 | DEC 2015 25