Tales of the legal profession have given us countless memorable TV moments (Silk, Damages, Rumpole of the Bailey, The Good Wife, Better Call Saul, need I go on?), but there’s always room for one more on top. War, created by George Kay backed up by a cluster of screenwriters, is a formidable addition to the list, as it tells the story of a bitter and tangled divorce battle between technology tycoon Morgan Henderson (Dominic West), creator of the Zephyr social media platform, and his movie star wife Carla Duval (Sienna Miller).
As well as being a portrait of an imploding marriage, War is also a finely-observed dissection of the machinations of prestigious law firms. As the married partners pair off against each other, so do their respective London legal rottweilers, Cathcarts & Sons (for Morgan) and Taylor & Byrne (for Carla). This affords plenty of scope for internal and external rivalry and shameless one-upmanship, not to mention assorted varieties of sharp practice.
Cathcarts are the blue-blood legal aristocrats, based (by the look of it) somewhere in St James’s and helmed by St John Smallwood. The role seems to have been tailored with Savile Row-esque precision for Pip Torrens, who delivers a masterclass in searing contempt, withering superciliousness and cold-blooded greed. His colleagues are right behind him. As his associate Suzie Levitnik (Kartanya Maynard) observes, “there is no such thing as an amicable outcome.” To which senior associate David Schill (Miles Jupp) rejoins, “not at this price point” (pictured below, Nina Sosanya, Pip Torrens and Dominic West).
Over in the “new kids on the block” corner are Taylor & Byrne, a practice formed by Nick Taylor (James McArdle) and his wife and business partner Serena Byrne (Phoebe Fox), herself a former Cathcarts employee who left when she failed to make partner. Their joint endeavour has proved successful, but not enough for them to feel insulated against potential future shocks. Indeed, should they fail to achieve a successful outcome in Carla’s divorce suit, bankruptcy will be looming. You sense that they need reminding that, in this context, nice guys finish last. They also need to keep a close eye on their newest recruit, Johnny Warren (Archie Renaux, pictured below), an aggressively ambitious young man desperate to make a big splash in the legal pond.
But while the lawyers may be effortlessly and instinctively tricky, the clients aren’t necessarily altogether trustworthy either. Perfectly cast as Henderson, Dominic West can’t help projecting an aura of amiable if slightly wolfish sleaze, the sort of chap who could convince you that he was your most stalwart supporter while inadvertently pushing you out of a window. After all, it’s his episode of casual infidelity with a young actress, Flora Munroe, after a business awards ceremony that has triggered the divorce case (Flora helpfully took a damning selfie of the occasion while Morgan was asleep). The fact that Flora turns out to be a professional acquaintance of Carla may throw a different light on the event…
The theme of nobody being quite what they seem runs through the show like creeping dry rot. If Morgan isn’t the faithful husband he’d like us to believe, chinks in Carla’s armour will be subtly leaked into the narrative (what happens in Hollywood stays in Hollywood, you might say). The depiction of her career, now in a descending phase after earlier big-screen successes, is handled with dry humour. Some of her recent performances have been in The Rising and The Rising 2: Up Again. She’s even made a return to the theatre. “The pay is low, but the work, the character, that’s what drives me,” she purrs earnestly. “It’s never been about money.”
Well obviously not, yet here are her lawyers demanding a down payment of £195m, 50 per cent of all her husband’s assets and monthly payments of £50k until Morgan is 75. Can this possibly end well?
- War is available on Sky Atlantic and NOW from 2 October
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