The Night Manager - 'Episode 1'

Richard Roper (Hugh Laurie), Jonathan Pine (Tom Hiddleston), Jed Marshall (Elizabeth Debicki), Theresa Burr (Olivia Colman) and Major Corkoran (Tom Hollander)

Exotic locations, down-at-heels spies and the most fabulous suits this side of Kingsman; welcome to the BBC's new John le Carre adaptation, The Night Manager.

"Just to be clear, I fear pretty much nothing."

Jonathan Pine is the Night Manager of a fancy hotel in Cairo on the brink of the Egyptian Revolution of 2011. He is entrusted by one of the hotel's resident guests, Sophie Alekan (Aure Atika), with making copies of documents revealing her boyfriend's involvement in a massive weapons deal brokered by British philanthropist and arms dealer Richard Roper. Feeling duty bound, Pine passes the copies on to a friend at the embassy named Ogilvy (a surprisingly sombre Russell Tovey,) but even as British intelligence operative Angela Burr begins to investigate, Roper is alerted and shuts down the deal. Ogilvy nixes his plans to escape to Britain with Alekan, with whom he has become involved. Burr is warned off the investigation and alerts Pine that Alekan is in imminent danger, but too late.

Look upon my location shooting ye mighty and despair.

Years later, Pine is working at a hotel in Switzerland when Roper brings a party to visit, including his number two guy, Corkoran, and flirty girlfriend Jed. Moved once more by a sense of duty - and perhaps a touch of vengeance - he contacts Burr and offers her the details of Roper's group and a batch of retrieved disposable SIM cards. She quizzes him on his motives for opposing a man like Roper. He tells her any Briton would act if faced with evidence that a compatriot was implicated in a deal that would cause untold death, but she assures him most wouldn't and then challenges him: "What are you prepared to do about it?"

Episode 1 of The Night Manager is mostly set up, and introduction to a flawlessly classy cast. Hiddleston is impeccably suave as the night manager, and if he doesn't quite sell as an Iraq war veteran yet, his suave walk through riot-torn Cairo and perfect deadpanning of Corkoran's veiled threats put him on the Jeeves level of unflappability. Very much the gentleman spy type, he's ably juxtaposed by the raw, brusque, counter-establishment Burr. More reminiscent of Kathy Burke's turn as Connie Sachs than of George Smiley, she's nonetheless very much the Whitehall spy, a hard-working intelligencer rather than a sharp-dressed gadabout. She is also notable as a woman of some, but not great, power in a very manly world. Ogilvy harshly dismisses Alekan as a tart and a whore when informing Pine that Her Majesty's Government does not stick its neck out to protect women from violent criminals, and Roper's party of toffs and millionaires blithely dismiss 'the ladies' to the lounge while they discuss 'combine harvester' sales.

And speaking of Roper's party, the double act of Hugh Laurie and Tom Hollander is the highlight of the closing third of the episode, bringing a booming and ebullient turn to the previously restrained drama. In fact, the bad guys in this piece are all notably louder than the good, with Alekan's boyfriend Freddie Hamid (David Avery) bringing a coarse volume into a programme previously dominated by the muted sizzling twixt Hiddleston and Atika. Laurie is wonderful as the totally affable Roper, his title of 'worst man in the world' lurking behind those weary eyes and in the soft-spoken threat of the discreetly thuggish Corkoran.

Naturally, the technical side of the show is impeccable, with lavish establishing shots of breathtaking locations and Hiddleston's eyes (oh, the eye porn in this series! and is it just me and my colour-blindness, or do Hiddleston and Laurie have basically the same shifting blue-green eyes?) posh frocks and just the fanciest suits. Say what you like about the BBC; this is their bread and butter and it's gorgeous. Whether it can sustain as it ramps up the tension remains to be seen, but this is a classy opener.