Turks & Caicos

I was thrilled by the first episode and expected a lot from the second. And got it.

The acting was impeccable. It was so good I missed it the first time I saw it. It seemed so natural.

The pace was slow, steady and intriguing but there were little hints as to the plot, pointers if you will, all the way through. Don't miss a second.

I watched it alone last night - my wife was babysitting grandchildren - and I was so fascinated that I saw it again with her tonight. It is even better the second time around. She actually clapped at the end.

Nighy is brilliant, giving more information in a look that Skippy ever did. Yet he never answers a question.

My wife and I talked it over for about an hour afterward.

The third episode is awaited with some anticipation. Page 8 was brilliant and T&C has kept up the quality.

Well done to everyone involved.

I had no idea this was a follow up to the movie "Page Eight". But I did remember that I had seen a movie with Bill Nighy in a similar role. Well it's actually the same role (there's also a follow up to this movie, though I haven't seen this and cannot comment on who's in that one obviously). I really liked Page Eight and I like this one too, though apparently not as much as the first one.

It's spy business but also a very tricky, who's who, who's doing what to who and why'd they do it? It may sound more complicated than it actually is. The pace is nice and it's really refreshing to see Wynona Ryder in a good role (doesn't seem to have changed a lot). Actually all the actors involved do a great job. More than decent entertaining than ...

The other ratings much too low.

It is ironic that the country which gave us the James Bond character (with saucy characters like Pussy Galore) also gives us the 64 year old Nighy, so thin he could slip under a door, so civilized his harshest weapon is his language, and, if you wondering if this works, BY GEORGE it does.

A cast to die for including both Helena Carter and Winona Ryder, but it is once again Nighy who steals the show. I confess I have not seen as much of his work as I should have. But I remember his knack for comedy in Love Actually and his knack for horror in the Underworld series and I will never forget this dapper spy who, it seems, could stop a bullet with a stern stare if he had to.

And the bullet would have to apologize.

My only regret is that there are only three entries in the series.

Great acting, great writing, and great entertainment. What more do you want?

David Hare's 'Turcs and Caicos' is a low key drama about international intelligence, dodgy businessmen and corrupt politicians. Bill Nighy plays a renegade gentleman spy who is strangely irresistible to women half his age; Helena Bonham Cater, meanwhile, is simply too glamorous to be serious in her role. Almost all of the key plot developments occur off-screen, and, as with most of Hare's work, there's a lot of talking around the subject that never quite gets to the point. What saves it is the quality of that talk: it's theatrical, but there's a beautiful rhythm to it. To compare it to the work of another playwright named David, namely David Mamet, the dialogue is a lot less stylised, but easier on the ear, almost poetic in places. And this is enough to make the piece stand out from the vast majority of contemporary drama.

Whilst spending his retirement in The Turks and Caicos, Johnny Worricker encounters a group of businessmen, one of them, Curtis Pellisier, he believes is a CIA agent.

It's quite an engrossing watch, for me this is what I would class as a typical BBC2 drama, typical as in very good, slightly more high brow, but one with a superb cast.

If you're expecting a fast paced, action packed affair, you may be disappointed, this is a wonderfully engrossing mystery, the story develops at a moderate pace, but the characters are so deep, so rich that the journey is well worth it.

Here you see just how brilliant Bill Nighy is, for me he's one of Britain's best, he thrives opposite the likes of Winona Ryder and Christopher Walken, the acting is quite something. Throw in Rupert Graves and Helena Bonham Carter, and you have something special.

The visuals are also a key feature, the sea, beaches and greenery are just magical.

It's an engrossing watch, 8/10.