Slow Horses: The anti-James Bond that gets to the heart of Britishness

With a new series launching today, Apple TV+'s spy show about MI5 rejects is more popular than ever. As with the Mick Herron books it's based on, it has lots to say about the UK today.

It is a show about, in the words of its theme song written by one Mick Jagger, "losers, misfits and boozers", yet it is an out-and-out winner. Apple TV+'s Slow Horses is a huge hit with viewers and universally acclaimed by critics. Based on a series of novels by Mick Herron, it only premiered in April 2022 but was immediately recognised as a jewel in the streaming service's crown and is now on its fourth season, which premieres today. Its third season has been nominated for a host of awards at next weekend's Emmys, while a fifth has already been filmed.

The "Slow Horses" of the title are failed MI5 agents put out to pasture in what Herron describes in the books as an "istrative oubliette" called Slough House – hence their nickname. Slough House is "like prison", says Sid Baker (Olivia Cooke), one of its inmates in the first season. "You're not supposed to ask what you're in for." These spooks either messed up on a mission or are battling an addiction to drink or drugs or gambling or, in the case of one of them, are simply so obnoxious that no-one can bear having them around. Now they're serving out their time in a dilapidated office in which a broom banged on the floor is the closest thing to an internal comms system. They're all desperate to get back to "the Park", as MI5's fictional headquarters in London's Regent's Park is known, although no-one ever has made it back. It's the job of Jackson Lamb (Gary Oldman), who is in charge of Slough House, to try to get these MI5 rejects to quit. The agency would prefer they do that rather than fire them.

At the heart of the show is Oscar-winner Oldman's gloriously unvain portrayal of Lamb. Jackson Lamb has elevated being a slob to an art form. His straggly, thinning hair, untouched by a barber's hand, hasn't been washed in months, if ever. His clothes look as though they are held together by their stains. His socks are more hole than hose. He proudly gives free rein to his flatulence and to watch him eat is to experience a shuddering cosmic horror. He smokes incessantly, he drinks heavily, he smells… less than great. It's difficult to imagine a character further removed from the iconic spy of page and screen, James Bond, smart, sophisticated, irresistible to women. Nor is he a George Smiley – John Le Carré's quiet master-spy portrayed by Oldman in a classy 2011 film adaptation of Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy.

Contrary to appearances, however, Lamb is tough, clever and highly competent. Herron has said of him that he "must have been a Bond, a Smiley, a hero of some sort, at one point of his life, but has seen through all of that, and reacted against it, to become what he is. He's not really an opposite. He's just come through the other side". His boss, Diana Taverner (Kristin Scott Thomas), the steely deputy head of MI5, is as well-groomed as Lamb is dishevelled, but although repulsed by him, she has a respect for him too. 

Lamb torments his staff with acerbic, sarcastic put-downs and thinks them useless idiots – or professes to. "I didn't mean to kill him," one of his agents who has accidentally despatched a Slough House intruder tells him. "Of course you didn't. If you'd meant to kill him, he'd still be alive," sneers Lamb. But his disdain might be feigned for professional purposes. "God, you really care about them, don't you">window._taboola = window._taboola || []; _taboola.push({ mode: 'alternating-thumbnails-a', container: 'taboola-below-article', placement: 'Below Article', target_type: 'mix' });