Lie 2Secret Service review – Gemma Arterton’s spy drama is not, in any conceivable way, fun
Another week, another glossy espionage drama in which agitated politicos scour the corridors of power in search of something, anything, to differentiate the thing from its predecessors. But what? ITV’s Secret Service rummages through its faux-leather briefcase for fresh ideas. Not the easiest of tasks, given the number of cliches that swirl around the genre’s cufflinks. But God loves a trier. And Secret Service is nothing if not tenacious.
Might a protagonist who juggles family life with a secret job as an MI6 agent count as a USP, it wonders, nodding at Kate Henderson (Gemma Arterton) and her tousled action-bob. No? How about a plot that divides itself between Whitehall and a more exotic, if no less treacherous, location such as, say, Malta? Or many scenes in which actors in wool-blend car coats stride purposefully past the SIS building while shouting things like: “You’re the bloody home secretary!” and: “Tell that to the prime minister!”
“Um,” you reply, as politely as you can (it has a gun). “Er …”
Adapted by the ITV news anchor Tom Bradby and the writer Jemma Kennedy from Bradby’s 2019 novel, the five-part series follows the doughty Henderson as she power-walks through an aggressively generic thriller that takes in all of the above. Having infiltrated the fancy Malta base of a Russian oligarch, Igor Borodin (Miglen Mirtchev), Henderson and her crack team of undercover mavericks discover that a member of the cabinet may be a Russian asset.
Meanwhile, the resignation of the PM sees the launch of a fraught leadership contest. The most likely candidates are the faintly shifty home secretary, Imogen Conrad (Amaka Okafor), and the foreign secretary, Ryan Walker (Mark Stanley). An oleaginous sod in tasselled loafers, Walker’s off-piste activities – here a friendship with the Russian foreign minister, there a flirtation with nationalism – lead to much consternation among top brass. Is Walker the Russian asset? Or could the real mole be closer to home? Let us consider the possibilities slowly over five hours including ad breaks.