Night riders

FAST & FURIOUS MEETS FANTASY IN STREET-RACING SHOW CURFEW…

Tvisit the set of Sky One’s dystopian racing drama Curfew is to visit a garage of dreams... and nightmares. In one corner: a sleek Jaguar XJS, white with a green stripe down the middle, with iron mesh armour covering the windows. In another: a regular London ambulance, fortified with spikes and electrified shields. Also on view: an old Volvo 240 family car (picnic included); a bright yellow campervan, pimped out with a cocktail bar, party lights and loudspeakers; and a huge black monster truck, decorated with bones and flesh.

This is a show featuring such wellknowns as Sean Bean, Billy Zane, Adrian Lester and Phoebe Fox... but in the words of producer Simon Maloney, “the cars are the real stars.”

Curfew is set in a totalitarian future England ravaged by a mysterious virus that’s turned a large chunk of the population into nocturnal, flesheating monsters. No one’s allowed out after dark, hence the title. But there is seemingly a way out: passage to a utopian creature-free island, won only via an illegal no-rules-apply drag race across Britain, from London to the Scottish Highlands. Curfew, then, is Wacky Races meets The Fast And The

Furious meets 28 Days Later, and is intended to be as exactly as fun and ludicrous as that sounds.

BILLY WHIZZ

“It’s a high-octane rollercoaster ride,” Maloney tells Small Screen on the show’s Manchester set. “There are scary elements, as there usually are with any kind of ‘B-movie’ genre, but it’s certainly not a dark, insidious show. It’s a real blast.” But don’t just take his word for it – take Billy Zane’s as well. “It’s such a bold undertaking,” says the star, standing in the misty forecourt of a decrepit petrol station (the last before the finish line). “That whole risk of making such divergent tones and genres work in concert. If you fail, it’s a train wreck, but if you succeed it’s the brass ring. And very few attempt it because it’s such a gamble.”

Dressed in a shearling jacket and a stetson (his own), Zane looks like a zen cowboy. His character is Joker Jones, a disillusioned psychiatrist whose Team Awesome – a madcap group of misfits who compete in the pimped-out campervan – are racing purely for the social-media hits. Zane was convinced to join the show by a flattering letter from creators Matthew Read and Will Gould (producers on Peaky Blinders). “They identified some things that I hoped had resonated through my work,” he says, “and fashioned this character out of my career. A little bit of Dead Calm, a little bit of Zoolander... To get to play the bastard child of all of my fathers – it’s a dream role.”

Team Awesome is but one of 25 competing crews, all racing across a single night. Curfew dissects this