I just caught up with The Night Manager on the bbc Iplayer, and would now thoroughly recommend you do the same. An adaptation of a John Le Carre novel, it concerns Jonathan Pine – polite, calm, charming, confident but self-deprecating, a little mysterious, very English – an ex army man who, at the piece’s opening, is working nights at a Cairo hotel. One night, a beautiful woman comes in, and asks Pine to keep a document safe for her. From there, a web of intrigue unfolds, involving the arms trade, the Arab spring, and a branch of the british secret service apparently based in a grotty flat in Victoria. It is a well written, well directed piece: perhaps not quite Bond, but it certainly has bondish overtones, especially in it’s hotel-heavy mise-en-scene. It drew me in: I began to care for the lead character quite early; I felt the anguish he feels at the tragic mistake he makes in this opening episode, and the ending left me dying to see what happens next.