SSGB

Sunday night was the final episode of SSGB and the series has been well received. The plot line is complex if not convoluted with many paths off it: the removal out of occupied Britain of nuclear research and the flight of the ageing infirm King George. This was in the context of 3 groups, the Wehrmacht, SS and the Resistance with the hero Superintendent Douglas Archer (Sam Riley) trying to do his job whilst pressurised by all three. The denouement was the removal of the King from hospital to an airfield which neutral USA was going to bomb. There was some connivance with the Resistance but one of the themes was the deadly rivalry between Kellermann (Rainer Bock) of the Wehrmacht and Dr Huth (Lars Eldinger ) of the SS. The writers Neale Purvis and Robert Wade basing the script on Len Deighton’s 1962 novel were subtle in the development of Kellermann, at first a cultivated hedonist in tweeds into a sadist and Huth who became less sinister and vicious and met the firing squad with bravery. Production designer Lisa Marie Hall did a superb job in the creation of the locations of a Nazi occupied Britain. There were some clever touches too such as collaborators giving themselves away for being too stocked up with food.

If I had a criticism it would be that of the acting of the two main characters Archer and the enigmatic American journalist Brigitte Bargo (Kate Bosworth). Riley looked far too boyish to be a Superintendent and had a strange whispering breathy diction. Kate Bosworth did not seem to get under the skin of her role. The 2 final shots were of her heading with an intense expression out of a room similar to those West Wing politicians charging down the corridors of power. Archer like some Heathcliff was alone on the moors with his nuclear secrets. It’s open to a follow up but Deighton never wrote a sequel.