A very very strange game, the British spy business. “Strange Game” is the name of the song that sounds over the opening credits of “Slow Horses” and it sets the tone for the whole series: “Surrounded by losers, misfits and boozers…” Losers, outsiders, alcoholics, the singer feels comfortable in this community and the motto by which it operates: If you make a mistake, you end up at the stake. It’s Mick Jagger who wrote the song himself, along with Daniel Pemberton.
Losers and misfits, that’s the troop of teenage agents from Slough House, the shabby branch of MI5, the British domestic intelligence service – a gloomy house in London, far from the glamorous main headquarters in Regent’s Park. The heating there “is an energy-wasting, useless piece of junk, but then again, this whole shabby office block – near Barbican tube station, on Aldersgate Street in Finsbury – isn’t exactly known for its efficiency, either in in terms of equipment, nor in terms of staff.” With these words Slough House is described in the novel “Spook Street” by Mick Herron, this is the fourth volume about this troupe, which was published in German half a year ago. The first volume “Slow Horses” has now been filmed on Apple TV+, the others are to follow.
Slough means swamp in German. The kids here meet all of today’s demands for diversity – and they are all retired, sidelined, unfit for duty, they have made a fool of themselves in their assignments, have alcohol problems or trauma. Lame horses, slow horses. When they leave the house at night, after work, you see everyone trudging into their own self-inflicted loneliness, that’s dreary. The work that is assigned here includes the pointless copying of interrogations or the searching of garbage bags for suspicious clues of any kind. The kids dream of the big chance of probation, returning to Regent’s Park. “Do you know how many have ever left Slough House?” asks Kristin Scott Thomas, who plays Diana Taverner, head of MI5. The answer: none.
Jackson Lamb is scruffy personified, has shaggy hair and farts unabashedly and profusely
Jackson Lamb, the lord of Slough House, was once a spirited, successful top agent. Gary Oldman plays him, who has been omnipresent in cinema in recent decades: Oldman appeared in Harry Potter and in the Batman trilogy about the Dark Knight or as Francis Coppola’s Dracula, and in the Le Carrè film “Dame, König, Ace, spy” he was George Smiley, incarnation of the agent who was as discreet as he was relentless. Oldman and Scott Thomas played the Churchills in the film The Darkest Hour. His new character, Jackson Lamb, on the other hand, is sleazy personified, has shaggy hair, farts unabashedly and profusely, and has holes in his socks. But he’s still a pro, and he’s fiercely loyal. He understands and respects and loves his kids. Slough House is a family. Cool and aloof Diana Taverner shares his disdain for the uptight and nerdy mediocrity of most of her agency’s agents.
Dirty personified: Gary Oldman in his role as Jackson Lamb.
(Photo: Apple TV+)
The young as society’s rejects, their energy and dynamism threaten to fizzle out. Particularly sad is the case of River Cartwright (Jack Lowden), whose grandfather was once a star of MI5. Until the squad is then suddenly drawn into an explosive case: a Pakistani student is kidnapped by a right-wing militant organization, demonstratively beheaded in front of an Internet camera – the fascist petty-bourgeois nature of this group is oppressive.
The sarcastic charm of Mick Herron’s storytelling sometimes falls victim to the TV series’ lust for action. But the creativity, the poetry of the agent profession keeps coming through. There is an inexhaustible wealth of intrigues in this business, and one must concern oneself with the rival opponents within much more than with the external enemy. Strange Game!
Slow Horseson Apple TV+
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