The World's Most Dangerous Roads (BBC2) was a rather more unexpected pleasure. And if Boyd does somehow manage to tie in everything so it all makes sense by the end, he is an even better writer than I thought. Either way, I don't much care and I can't wait. Maybe it's the uniformly excellent cast: Michael Gambon is set to take a leading role as the elder Romer in tonight's concluding part. Maybe it is the sheer relief of a drama with high production values among a sludge of other Christmas dross. How does Boyd get away with what seem like so many inconsistencies in the storyline? If Sally doesn't know exactly who is watching her, how can she possibly know she isn't about to be killed immediately? And how come she doesn't so much as bat an eyelid when Romer suggests a honeytrap sting on an American politician? Surely, she must have had a momentary misgiving?īut get away with it he does. How do you lead a double life? How far are your personal relationships compromised? Does it even matter if you are living a lie if no one is getting hurt? There's one other secret at work, though. The surface narrative of Restless is Sally/Eva revealing to her daughter Ruth that she had been a spy in the war, first operating in mainland Europe, before a compromised operation in Holland led to her being transferred to the US as part of an undercover team to get the Americans to declare war on Germany – with a lot of Rufus Sewell-shaped love interest as her mysterious Not-So-Fat Controller, Lucas Romer, thrown in.
But it is as the author of upmarket thrillers – a genre often looked down on by the literati – that he has really come into his own and received the commercial success his talent deserves. Mind you, I'd be happy to watch Charlotte Rampling reading a gearbox repair manual.īoyd has written everything from brilliantly funny comic novels to very hit-and-miss serious fiction.
And no less enjoyable for it, unless you missed Downton's comedy value.
Restless (BBC1), William Boyd's adaptation of his own 2006 novel, was everything Downton isn't: well-acted, well-written, well-paced and well-filmed. A fter her, by now traditional, pantomime dame performance as Lady Mary in the Downton Abbey Christmas special, Michelle Dockery was back two days later as Charlotte Rampling's daughter in another period drama, one that flitted between the 1970s and the second world war.
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