Secret Service opens with Kate Henderson (Gemma Arterton – The Critic) and her busy family getting ready for the day… very ’24’ opening episode…
Before long, Kate’s in Senglea, Malta, which is actually Stockport doubling up as the European city. Similar to how Liverpool doubled-up for the back of Stockport railway station in Betrayal.
She’s there for a meetup in a church, to pass on a bug to nanny Lena, that needs to be sneaked into Igor Borodin’s (Miglen Mirtchev) abode, as he’s the head of the Russian Secret Service, in return for her brother avoiding conscription. Impressively, this bug has a battery life of 200 hours. In that case, why does my phone still use a battery that needs to be charged up daily??
But the big news comes when the earwigging causes everyone back in MI6 to learns that the British Prime Minister has a bit of a problem… he’s completely useless. Oh wait, that’s ours. No, this one has cancer, and if it’s true, it means there’s a Russian spy at No.10.
Secret Service is an intriguing potboiler with a superb cast, originally produced in novel form by the hand of ITV newsreader Tom Bradby, who also pops up doing a news broadcast. Just be thankful it’s not Jeremy Vine.
(Oh, and, nah, it’s not Stockport, this time)
NOTE: This is a spoiler-free preview, and I’ll add more after broadcast.
Thanks to our friends at ITV for the screener prior to release.
Secret Service begins tomorrow night on ITV at 9pm, then continues on Tuesday, and each Mon & Tues after that. I expect on day one, it’ll be available to stream on ITVX.
It’s also available to pre-order on Blu-ray and DVD.
Series Directors: Farren Blackburn, James Marsh
Screenplay: Alex Kendall, Jemma Kennedy
Novel: Tom Bradby
Music: Samuel Sim
Cast:
Kate Henderson: Gemma Arterton
Kyril: Oleg Levin
Sandro: Maxim Grigorovich
Anthony Fletcher: Steven Elder
Fiona: Galaxie Clear
Sergey Malinskiy: Alexander Terentyev
MI6 Security Officer: Dywayne Thomas
Igor Borodin: Miglen Mirtchev
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.