High-stakes thriller Red Eye marks twist on ITV
Ready for a tense and twisty new thriller to sink your teeth into? ITV’s Red Eye starts exactly as it means to go on – with high-octane, high-stakes drama that’ll leave you holding your breath to find out what happens next aboard a “red eye” flight from London to Beijing.
With a stellar cast including Richard Armitage, Lesley Sharp and Jing Lusi among others, and written by Peter A Dowling (known for police drama Black And Blue and Flightplan), the six-part series begins with British surgeon Dr Matthew Nolan (played by Armitage) being chased into a street in Beijing, escaping in his car and crashing shortly after.
Nolan had seemingly been in the country attending a medical conference with a group of colleagues. Next though, landing back in London, he is swiftly stopped by airport police, interrogated, strip-searched – and then told he’s being extradited back to China to face murder charges, after a woman’s body was found in his car.
Nolan insists he has no idea what they’re talking about. But is he telling the truth?
“One of the things I loved when I read the first episode is that by default, a doctor who has taken the Hippocratic Oath to do no harm, we should be trusting him from the getgo,” says Leicestershire-born Armitage, 52, on getting stuck into the role.
“The fact that he comes into the story with doubt in his own mind, because he doesn’t really remember what happened on that night so he can’t be 100% sure, he’s already in a state of flux within himself.
“Throughout the course of the story, we sort of ebb and flow between being absolutely convinced of his innocence, and really doubting who he is, and whether he’s a spy or some kind of mule.
“It was really interesting to play around with that, and at points, I didn’t really know whether he was telling the truth!”
Clues are quickly dropped that this is more than a “straightforward” murder story.
Madeline Delaney, director general of security services at MI5 (played by The Full Monty and Before We Die star Sharp), is pulled into the picture, with the Chinese government insisting on Nolan’s immediate return.
And one of the doctor’s colleagues is bundled into the back of a van in the airport car park when he refuses to fly back to help with evidence.
Red Eye starts on ITV1 and ITVX tomorrow