Fauda/4th series

My partner Joanna aptly calls is “Foul Up” as the Elite Israeli defence unit headed up by Dorian – once the bodyguard of Arnold Schwarzenegger – goes into its fourth series.

They always seem to mess up. Audacity meets chaos (the actual translation of Fauda) which makes for good telly.

I’m told by those that know more about such things than me that no reputable espionage unit would use mobile phones but these again make for dramatic tension and are the ‘lingua franca” of the young viewers that make up the Netflix audience

The first episode featured a conflicted Dorian who had agreed to protect the family of a jihadist he was now controlling until the opportunity materialised to take out a big honcho Hamas terrorist.

As with most first episodes the plot line was unclear but set up for the next six.

I asked our theatre and film critics – Robert and Neil – for their views of the acting. They said it lacked subtlety and there was a tendency to declaim again to create tension but you could see the principals were not theatrically trained.

One of the oddities of Fauda is that it is popular amongst the Palestinians.

This might be because the backing of the Israeli governments is by no means unconditional. In the previous series a captured Hamas operator told the stooge pigeon planted in his cell he was hung upside down.