Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.It’s the most wonderful time of the year. Well, at least until your boss at the shadowy private intelligence agency gatecrashes your Christmas shindig to inform you that your illicit lover has been murdered and your cover potentially blown. Such is the lot of Helen Webb (Keira Knightley), a senior politician’s wife living a double life as a spy in Netflix’s rollicking new thriller. Black Doves merrily follows Die Hard in marrying festive cheer with season’s beatings.Despite hints of the classic Christmas action film — and stronger similarities with that other dark-humoured, distinctly British espionage drama Slow Horses — the six-part series is an original story from acclaimed showrunner Joe Barton (Giri/Haji). It begins with the assassination of a skittish civil servant, who may or may not have found out something about the mysterious recent death of the Chinese ambassador to the UK. Sniped on the South Bank — in a glittering, grisly London where even your cashier at Liberty has ties to the underworld — the victim, it transpires, had unwittingly been having an affair with a woman who was not the polished Whitehall wife she appeared to be.Knightley increasingly goes against type as Helen vows to find and exact brutal vengeance against her boyfriend’s killers in tough-talking speeches that could have been written for Liam Neeson. Similarly jarring yet quickly justified is the casting of Ben Whishaw (Paddington Bear himself) as trigger-happy hitman Sam, who is tasked by inscrutable spymaster Reed (Sarah Lancashire) with protecting Helen. Lancashire is ever commanding as the head of the Black Doves, an information-sourcing organisation operating in the service of the pound rather than the monarch on the banknotes.There’s no shortage of adrenalised action set pieces and simmering intrigue. But the show has its three excellent leads to thank for distracting from some improbable and unwieldy plotting. The conspiracy narrative is marred by nebulous geopolitics and paranoiac clichés. Yet that story becomes almost secondary to Helen and Sam’s unexpectedly touching friendship and their respective personal stories. Shady characters they may be, but there’s depth in their struggle to reconcile fake identities with real-life consequences, and the superficial excitement of their work with its intrinsic hollowness.Droll dialogue and blasts of cynical wit keep over-earnestness at bay. In fact, Black Doves manages to be as enjoyable to watch as it evidently was for an arse-kicking Knightley and co to make. There’s room for improvement — which an already commissioned second series will need to address — but it feels more apt to focus on the promise of the fledgling series rather than its flaws. ’Tis the season, after all.★★★★☆On Netflix from December 5
