Betrayal – ITV1
Defusing nuclear devices is overrated.
There’s very little call for driving sports cars underwater or outrunning avalanches, either.
But the one talent a British secret agent does need is an ability to lie. And Betrayal’s John Hughes (Shaun Evans) doesn’t seem to have it in him.
Even his colleagues notice. ‘You’re a terrible liar, you know,’ chides his MI5 replacement, Mehreen (Zahra Ahmadi), after John is suspended from duty following a misunderstanding at a motorway service station that leaves two gangsters dead.
His GP wife, Claire (Romola Garai), recognises the signs, too. When he mumbles something about an overnight assignment, it takes her 30 seconds to force him to admit that he wasn’t working solo, that his fellow spy was female, and that they booked into a cheap hotel together.
Little wonder the pair are having marriage guidance sessions, where Claire informed the therapist, ‘John works for the security services — MI5. I think I’m not supposed to say that.’
‘The one talent a British secret agent does need is an ability to lie. And Betrayal’s John Hughes (Shaun Evans) doesn’t seem to have it in him,’ writes Christopher Stevens
Even his colleagues notice. ‘You’re a terrible liar, you know,’ chides his MI5 replacement, Mehreen (Zahra Ahmadi), after John is suspended from duty following a misunderstanding at a motorway service station that leaves two gangsters dead
If he were any good at deception, she wouldn’t have found out about the affair he had with another colleague seven years ago. We used to believe that espionage required an exceptional gift for subterfuge and double- crossing. Thanks to Claudia
Winkleman and The Traitors, though, we now know that half the population loves lying and does it very well. It’s just that John isn’t among that half.
Though the action sequences are bloody and the plotting fast-paced, Betrayal lays its emphasis on how ordinary the lives of spies really are. There’s nothing new about this: John Le Carre’s spooks were also humdrum and unglamorous, though I don’t remember hearing so much about their haemorrhoids. It’s difficult to be Smiley with piles.
John Hughes does have one thing in common with James Bond. He’s a bit of a dinosaur. Though his boss is a woman (something that visibly rankles), he automatically expects his rivals to be men, and consequently has a tendency to get his pronouns wrong. In this day and age!
And when the HR department emails him with an offer of voluntary redundancy, he’s straight on the phone to them, effing and jeffing. Again — in this day and age!
All this could become unintentionally comical, with a less believable actor in the leading role. As in Endeavour, Shaun Evans is compellingly watch-able without being remotely starry. He handles everything from set-piece violence to childcare with the same hangdog reluctance, as though he recognises the necessity of all he does though none of it brings much pleasure.
Only once does he allow a note of vanity to creep in to John’s demeanour, when his phone goes off in the middle of a counselling session. Asked to switch it off, he crows, ‘I can’t.’
For a second or two, we glimpse how inwardly important his job makes him feel. That’s one secret he is able to keep.