Belief beggared
I’ve been watching London Spy on telly. Very expensive actors plodding their way through a script that begins with a real-life tragedy (Oldest trick in the mystery genre; take a real homicide and fictionalise it.) and evolves into a hugely unlikely plot revealing a central premise that is so nonsensical it is barely explained. Must have cost a bomb to produce, yet it’s broadcast on Mondays on BBC2, a form of relegation.
So I wondered, how did this come about, and who is the creator Tom Rob Smith, that he was given such licence and that such resources were invested in his work? In search of a clue, I looked him up on Wkipedia and found this:
“Smith lives in central London with his boyfriend Ben Stephenson, the Controller of BBC Drama Commissioning.”
Sometimes, very rarely but it happens, words fail me. In this instance I have only this to say. If that’s what it takes for Skinnner to be on TV, forget it.
Categories: General
Quintin Jardine's blog 
A bit of nepotism in play here
I didn’t get past episode 1. I’ve been watching Spooks on Netflix. Well researched and written and strangely prescient. There’s been nothing to match it in a good few years.
Tom Rob Smith’s novels are excellent and well worth the read. Start with Child 44.
I’m told they are, and I’ll get round to them. But they won’t change my view of London Spy.