It’s rare to spot Keira Knightley in a TV series, and it’s no doubt a sign of changing times that she’s starring in this six-part spies-and-guns caper, penned by Joe Barton (of Giri/Haji and The Lazarus Project fame).
Set in a seasonally Christmassy London, it’s a twisty and fairly daft yarn about a dead Chinese ambassador, his missing daughter who has a heroin habit, a ruthless professional trigger man with a sentimental streak, and some murky Westminster chicanery. Then throw in the CIA and watch it all go off.
Keira’s character, Helen Webb, is married to the Defence Secretary, Wallace Webb (Andrew Buchan, doing an impeccable impersonation of a greasy-pole-climbing Tory politician), but Helen (if that’s her real name) is also leading a double life. She’s working for the clandestine “Black Doves”, a mercenary operation which sells top-secret information to the highest bidder. This shadowy bunch are represented by Mrs Reed, a dowdy and rather objectionable old bat played by a seemingly deep-frozen Sarah Lancashire (pictured below).
This isn’t Helen’s only secret, since she’s also having a clandestine affair with a chap called Jason (Andrew Koji), a civil servant working in government. Or at least she was, before Jason was bafflingly bumped off alongside a tabloid journalist and an MI5 agent called Maggie. When Mrs Reed sends for her dependable hit-man, Sam (Ben Whishaw), to investigate, he conveniently finds a spent cartridge case bearing the fingerprints of a former SAS man, Elmore Fitch, but this of course is merely a ruse to muddy the waters…
It’s possibly best to give up on the plot altogether and just enjoy some of the passing scenery. One of the nice things about Black Doves is the way it uses authentic London locations, from Leadenhall Market to Piccadilly, Mayfair, the East End and the South Bank, rather than trying to fob us off with scenes faked up in Liverpool or Belfast. Actor-wise, Knightley is quite engaging as Helen, who already had enough on her plate before all this murder and mayhem started erupting all around her, though scenes of the slender Keira beating up big ugly men in hand-to-hand combat do rather stretch credulity (pictured below, Keira lets 'em have it). Whishaw is almost always good, though even he has difficulty trying to convince you that what a professional hitman with dozens of kills to his credit is really pining for is a life of cosy domesticity with his lover, Michael (Omari Douglas).
Indeed, light-entertainment hit-persons are one of the show’s major themes. Plenty of mileage is given to the Irish psycho-killer Williams (Ella Lily Hyland), who we first meet while she’s disguised as a policewoman looking for some priceless evidence. She likes to work as a double act, and when Sam blows the head off her first partner she’s replaced by the very Welsh Eleanor (Gabrielle Creevy). Even when they’re stuck in a block of flats trying to work out how to fend off swarms of ruthless attackers, the pair of them keep a steady stream of banter and wisecracks, as if they’re in a Celtic reincarnation of Pulp Fiction.
Amidst all this, we’re supposed to be very concerned at the prospect of World War Three, since the Chinese are incensed at the death of their ambassador and are convinced that the Americans killed him, with the connivance of the British. But if they blow up the world, that would mean no season two of Black Doves… which has already been commissioned.
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