SLOW HORSES return builds up speed for September…

Slow Horses, the apple-tv series based on the equally-acclaimed novels by Mike Herron, was something of a slow-burn hit when it hit screens in 2022.  A mix of solid spy thriller and weathered dark humour it tells the story of a group of outlier intelligence operatives who work from a dusty, often overlooked annex, Slough House. The intelligence service would rather forget they existed (most of the operatives have fallen foul of someone in power and not ended up there by choice) but the team often end up as the deniable solution to problems (though they may start a fair few of them themselves).

The series is back for a sixth run in September, with a seventh already filmed – it’s one of the few shows that double-dips and seems keeps ahead of the curve in modern series production (especially in the UK). The sixth season will adapt the seventh novel in Herron’s books – a chapter specifically named Slough House – and it will see the return of an unexpected face from an earlier season. (We won’t spoil who it is, but the trailer below  – perhaps unwisely -does show them in its closing seconds!).

We know that several of the mainstays are back including Gary Oldman as the shambolic but brilliant Jackson Lamb, Jack Lowden as the bright but luckless River Cartwright, Christopher Chung as arrogant programmer Roddy Ho, Aimee-Ffion Edwards as Shirley Dander, Rosalind Eleazar as Louisa Guy, Tom Brooke as J K Coe and Ruth Bradley as Emma Flyte. Jonathan Pryce, Hugo Weaving and Kristin Scott-Thomas will also be back.

Will Smith (no, not that one) was the showrunner for the first five seasons but didn’t return for the next block.

“Series 5… it doesn’t end things by any means, but it concludes certain story arcs that started in Season 1,” Smith said in a statement at the time. “So, it felt like a good moment to hand over the show. I think it’s a big show and it’s an intense process. And I suppose I didn’t want to lose the sense of fun of it.”

The sixth season of Slow Horses debuts, weekly, from 16th September on apple-tv…