No one messes with an SAS hero armed with a book of poetry...
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SAS Rogue Heroes HHHHI Tutankhamun’s Secrets: Raiders Of The Lost Past
WHEN Peaky Blinders first aired, writer Steven Knight was criticised for glamorising a gang of lowlife Birmingham street thugs.
There can be no such complaints about SAS Rogue Heroes (BBC1), Knight’s adaptation of historian Ben Macintyre’s account of the exploits of the first Special Air Service soldiers.
If anything, this six-part wartime drama, set in North Africa, tones down some of the most outrageous excesses of this self-styled ‘band of vagabonds’. In one scene, the regiment’s founder David Stirling (Connor Swindells) commandeers a room in an officer’s club by throwing a dummy grenade onto the snooker table. In real life, the grenade wasn’t a dummy.
Macintyre’s book was the basis for a documentary series five years ago, which featured archive interviews filmed with veteran survivors in 1987. It also included clips of World War II parachute training, involving jumping off lorries at 30mph.
At the time I pointed out that the story cried out for movie treatment, ideally with a young David Niven as Stirling and John Mills as his second-in-command, the highly strung Jock Lewes.
Knight does his best, with a filmic style evoking the best Desert Rats war movie, Ice Cold In Alex. There’s hard drinking, tight-lipped insubordination, outbursts of reckless heroism and inspirational speeches dripping with English public school sarcasm.
Peaky Blinders was notable for its aggressive soundtrack and slowmotion walks, both prominent elements in SAS Rogue Heroes. The show opened with a jaunty march, like the theme tune of Colonel Bogey. But that quickly gave way to crunching heavy rock.
I half expected Stirling to whip off his cap, reveal a Brylcreemed topknot and snarl like Arthur Shelby: ‘Yow down’t mess with the Ess-Ay-Fooggin-Ess!’
Instead, Swindells’ portrayal was almost a parody of a hero from a boys’ comic book. He knocked back whisky like he was swallowing medicine for Matron, and was only once at a loss for four-syllable words when he met a sultry French spy (Sofia Boutella). ‘Apologies,’ he drawled, concerned she might imagine he was flirting with her. ‘That sounds like an attempt to be charming — it wasn’t meant to be.’
Alfie Allen played Lewes as a deranged martinet, clutching his wrist to prevent his hand shaking as he forced his men to stand on parade during an air raid.
The true maniac, though, was Paddy Mayne (Jack O’Connell), who broke out of prison after flattening three military policemen with a slim volume of poetry.
The verbose affectations dragged occasionally. But we got a strong sense of the three differing personalities at the core of the tale and, with the whole series now on iPlayer, the bonesnapping cliffhanger left me eager for the next episode.
Further south in the Egyptian desert, Janina Ramirez was on the trail of Tutankhamun’s Secrets: Raiders Of The Lost Past (BBC2). This week marks the centenary of the discovery of King Tut’s tomb, and this one-off documentary revealed nothing that hasn’t been told many times before.
But throughout this brisk, factfilled hour, Dr Janina’s enthusiasm for the artefacts and the archaeology was infectious. ‘I didn’t think I’d get emotional,’ she sobbed, as the glass case over Tutankhamun’s gold casket was removed, so she could take a closer look.
Drinking tea in an elegant hotel beside the Nile, she listed the theories behind the boy king’s death. Some reckon he was bitten by a hippo, apparently. Now that does seem unlikely.