THE SERPENT

★★★★

OUT 1 JANUARY / BBC ONE, BBC IPLAYER /

EPISODES VIEWED 4 OF 8

SHOWRUNNERS Richard Warlow, Toby Finlay and Stephen Smallwood

CAST Tahar Rahim, Jenna Coleman, Billy Howle, Ellie Bamber

The Serpent is set in the mid ’70s, and deliberately looks like it was made then, too. A meticulous dramatisation of the true story of murderer Charles Sobhraj (Tahar Rahim) and his partner Marieandrée Leclerc (Jenna Coleman), who preyed on western travellers along the “hippie trail” from India to Nepal, the series is filmed in the style of a vintage Robert Altman movie. The narrative cuts between Sobhraj coldly carrying out his crimes and the investigations of Herman Knippenberg (Billy Howle), a junior diplomat in Bangkok, whose search for the truth grips like one of those ’70s conspiracy thrillers, too.