Turks and Caicos

So you didn't know that 'Page Eight' was the first in 'The Worricker Trilogy'?  Neither did we.  So here we are breaking our own rules and reviewing a 'returner'.  Sort of.  It has been a couple of years since the first part and the third follows next week, so all that we remembered was that Bill Nighy was a mild-mannered, reluctant spy of the old school, let's say one of Le Carre's more decent creations, and got himself into hot water investigating the government's involvement in illegal torture during the war on terror.

Strangely enough, that's what this one's about too.  Ewan Bremner as his unlikely friend Rollo Maverley and Ralph Fiennes as slimy PM Alex Beesley must have enjoyed the first one so much they've returned for cameos, while Winona Ryder, Helena Bonham Carter and Christopher Walken join in the fun.  Because this is a lot of fun, even while it purports to be about Very Serious Things.  The theatre is Hare's natural home, and while this lifts the dialogue beyond the usual bland televisual standard, it also requires that little extra suspension of disbelief which a stage and the dimming of the house lights usually aids.  Do jaded security operatives really spy on big-time crooks on glamorous, if rather sleazy islands?  We can't help thinking that the reality is more 'death in a plastic bag' than 'death in paradise'.

On its own theatrical terms, though, it's rather like a Greek tragedy: the hero asks what has happened to (a sense of) shame; the heroine (Helena Bonham-Carter playing beautifully straight, for a change, as Margot Tyrell) risks everything for her lost love and his moral scruples which were once also her ideals; there is a woman so damaged by men that her only escape is to bury her own morals (inspired casting of Winona Ryder as Melanie Fall).  Christopher Walken, as shady CIA operative Curtis Pelissier, is even a sort of chorus, dogging Johnny, making him question his motives.  Suffice to say that, as with the Greeks, the rot is deeply embedded in the state, and the state these days is a global one.

Great ending-that-isn't-an-ending, leading us nicely to the final part.  No doubting that Hare crafts a good drama that is almost a eulogy to lost values, but we can't help thinking this is, more than anything else, a rather elegant way for Hare to declare his extreme dislike of modern politics.