Slow Horses review: The all-action spies who prove the next 007 must be a female, writes CHRISTOPHER STEVENS

Slow horses (Apple TV+)

Rating:

The Murder Of Lyn Dawson (Sky Crime)

Rating:

She might be Jane Bond, or Jemima, even Janine… but the next star to play Agent 007 will have to be female. If we leave it to men, the world is doomed.

Male spies are losers, according to the A-list espionage drama-comedy Slow Horses. You can barely trust them to cross the road, never mind spot a double-cross.

But every woman is born to be Bond — lightning reactions, ruthless wit, supercharged sex drive. Kristin Scott Thomas as MI5 chief Diana chews up one hapless male underling: ‘I want you to keep walking until you get to the sea, and when you get there keep walking with your mouth open.’

Ice-cool operative Louisa (Rosalind Eleazar) picks up an eager suitor for sex in a bar, by telling him to sit in silence till she’s ready to drag him to bed. Next morning, she kicks him out of her flat for daring to raid her fridge: the gormless twerp never guesses that’s where she keeps her stash of diamonds.

Later she stops a lairy council worker from impounding a car, by smashing up his tow truck with a crowbar. The bully in the hi-viz jacket is so slack-jawed with shock, he’s afraid even to call the police.

Male spies are losers, according to the A-list espionage drama-comedy Slow Horses. You can barely trust them to cross the road, never mind spot a double-cross

Now in its third series and based on the bestselling novels by Mick Herron, its tone swings from action to slapstick and back again, so that every thrill is in danger of being undercut by cheap laughs (Pictured: Gary Oldman)

And pint-sized secret agent Shirley (Aimee-Ffion Edwards) slaps a smarmy colleague so hard, he doesn’t regain consciousness for three scenes.

The contrast with the chaps couldn’t be more extreme. Some are thugs and knuckle-draggers, others are lecherous perverts. But the rest are worse than that.

Jack Lowden plays River Cartwright, a man as wet as his name. He can’t even carry a box of files downstairs without the bottom falling out.

His boss is Jackson Lamb (Gary Oldman), a dishevelled drunk whose idea of personal hygiene is to soap himself with Fairy Liquid at the office washbasin, with a cigarette dangling from his lower lip.

Now in its third series and based on the bestselling novels by Mick Herron, its tone swings from action to slapstick and back again, so that every thrill is in danger of being undercut by cheap laughs.

In the opening double bill of episodes, we see car chases, boat chases and heart-pumping races up escalators or through underground complexes — but these can end at any moment when one spy blunders into another and they both go flying.

It’s saved from complete farce by a stylish depiction of London, as a grimy city where contacts feed secrets to their handlers on the plastic chairs in East End launderettes, and targets are bundled into cars by assassins under railway tunnels.

There’s a strong flavour of The Ipcress File, though a Slow Horses version would probably have starred Marti Caine, not Michael.

The surfer’s paradise of Sydney’s northern beaches in Australia are a world away, in every sense, from grimy London. They’re also the setting for one of the world’s most closely examined disappearances, thanks to the global success of a 2018 podcast called Teacher’s Pet

That audio serial led to the renewal of a murder hunt and, eventually, the conviction of former teacher Chris Dawson for the killing of his wife, Lyn, whose body was never found (Pictured: Chris and Lyn with their eldest daughter)

The surfer’s paradise of Sydney’s northern beaches in Australia are a world away, in every sense, from grimy London. 

They’re also the setting for one of the world’s most closely examined disappearances, thanks to the global success of a 2018 podcast called Teacher’s Pet.

That audio serial led to the renewal of a murder hunt and, eventually, the conviction of former teacher Chris Dawson for the killing of his wife, Lyn, whose body was never found.

The Murder Of Lyn Dawson (Sky Crime) rehashes the story at a swift pace, galloping through the twists and turns, and giving us little time to absorb the shocks that made the podcast such addictive listening.

It also disguises the identity of the 16-year-old babysitter seduced by Dawson — a strange decision, since her name was used throughout the podcast. For true-crime enthusiasts, the snatches of Dawson home video are interesting, but this remake feels rather pointless.

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