The spies of Slow Horses are ‘as useless as everyone else’

Copy link Copied Copy link Copied Subscribe to gift this article Gift 5 articles to anyone you choose each month when you subscribe. Already a subscriber? Login The British spies at the centre of the Apple TV+ series Slow Horses aren’t particularly handsome, or efficient, or disciplined. They’re rejects from MI5, consigned to a dark, dingy London office run by Jackson Lamb (Gary Oldman), a slovenly, scotch-swilling, flatulent burnout.

Early in season four, Lamb objects when a new no-nonsense MI5 officer (Ruth Bradley) handcuffs him during an investigation. “I’d rather not take any chances with a man who looks like he gropes people on buses,” she tells him. “You’re being hurtful about my appearance,” Lamb mutters.

“I might have to call HR.” Will Smith, the showrunner, knew he had been handed a gift when he was enlisted to work on Slow Horses . Based on the series of Slough House novels by Mick Herron, the TV adaptation has the kind of biting humour and dysfunctional, high-stakes office politics of two shows Smith wrote for under Armando Iannucci, The Thick of It and Veep .

It also has Oldman, sinking his teeth into his first starring TV role, and Jonathan Pryce, who takes centre stage in the new season as an old spy descending into dementia (which creates complications in the espionage world). Then there’s the short, bluesy theme song, performed by some bloke named Mick Jagger . Already a fan of Herron’s books, Jagger was happy to join the party.

In Jul.