Otto Farrant stars as a teenage spy in new drama
Vicky McClure And Otto FARRANT star in an action-packed drama about a reluctant teenage spy
Alex Rider
From Thursday 4 June, eight episodes as a box set, Amazon Prime Video
THE WORLD OF espionage is dangerous enough – but imagine how much tougher it would be to undertake a perilous secret mission when you’re also a teenage boy dealing with schoolwork and budding relationships.
That’s the premise of Anthony Horowitz’s hugely popular Alex Rider novels, which follow the fortunes of an intrepid young spy. Now, 20 years after the publication of the first novel, Stormbreaker,
Amazon Prime Video is bringing Alex’s thrilling adventures to life in its compelling eight-part series.
The drama centres on schoolboy Alex (Otto Farrant), who has been brought up by his taciturn banker uncle Ian (Andrew Buchan) following the death of his parents.
But when Ian is suddenly killed, Alex discovers he was actually a spy for The Department, a mysterious offshoot of MI6 run by hard-nosed Alan Blunt (Stephen Dillane) and his second-in-command Mrs Jones (Vicky Mcclure).
Ian has been surreptitiously training an unwitting Alex both mentally and physically for a future in espionage, but when
The Department approaches Alex and uses its ruthless powers of
persuasion to try to recruit him to learn more about Ian’s death, will he play ball?
‘Alex is conflicted,’ says Farrant, as
Tv&satellite Week caught up with him on set last summer at a former university building in east London that doubles up as
The Department’s HQ.
‘He’s angry because he feels he’s been lied to his whole life but he
also wants to understand who killed his uncle and why. So he says, “This is on my terms if
I’m doing it.”’
Although Alex is still grieving, he begrudgingly agrees to work with The Department and go undercover at Point Blanc – an elite and enigmatic boarding school in the French Alps for the troubled teenage children of the super-rich, which Ian was investigating before his death.
SINISTER CONSPIRACY
As Alex gradually learns more about a sinister conspiracy at Point Blanc, he also has to negotiate his way around its strange community.
‘Alex is an outsider and he’s not even the best spy. He has to work it all out for himself, which is tough,’ says Farrant – best known for his roles in Mrs Wilson and
War & Peace – who landed the coveted role of Alex after more than 600 actors auditioned.
‘We’ve all been teenagers and you’re struggling to find your identity, so it’s interesting to see that
play out within the action-packed
world of spies. You watch someone become a man from being a boy.’
As danger beckons, Mrs Jones, who is Alex’s point of contact with The Department, keeps a watchful eye on him, while also challenging Blunt over the pressure he puts on Alex.
‘Mrs Jones has her issues with Blunt and questions his decisions,’ says
Line of Duty star Mcclure, 37. ‘Her relationship grows with Alex because she has a job to do as his handler, but with that comes the human side.
He’s a young boy being put in a horrific situation and you see she cares about him.’
Although Farrant is a long-time fan of the novels, which are aimed at young adults, they were new to Mcclure and she hopes the TV series will appeal to a wider age range with its grit, high-octane espionage sequences
and poignancy.
NEW AUDIENCE
‘It’s nice that this is something my nephews can watch – it’s a new audience for me because everything else I do is so dark,’ she says. ‘I assumed the show would be childlike and then I read the script and I was surprised at the amount of action in it.’
Farrant finds himself at the forefront of most of those action scenes, but he couldn’t take part in as many as he would have liked.
‘The first three weeks of the shoot were in Romania and there was a lot of snowboarding. But the producers wouldn’t let me do it. [Olympic bronze medallist] Billy Morgan is my stunt double, so it looks amazing,’ he smiles.
‘But when I got back to London [to film], I was set on doing as much as I could and I did some Krav Maga martial-arts training and started climbing a lot – so
I’ve been able to run through military bases and hang off buildings. It’s been fun.’
‘He’s a young boy being put
in a horrific situation. She cares about him’
VICKY MCCLURE