Why Slow Horses is proof that Gary Oldman is the greatest actor alive

We are living in a golden age of incredible acting talent. But I reckon Gary Oldman is the best of the lot. If you really want to annoy the over-60 Pom in your life, tell them Gary Oldman was better at playing George Smiley than Alec Guinness, who famously played John le Carré's veteran spy in 1979 and 1982, in BBC adaptations of Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy and Smiley's People. Of course, Guinness is absolutely superb.

Oldman played Smiley only once, in Tomas Alfredson's feature film of Tinker, Tailor in 2011. And yet, Oldman dialled in the definitive Smiley, locating a seam of cuckolded bitterness and repressed rage that was there in Le Carré's writing but which the TV series mostly brushed over.

Also, nearly everybody I know disagrees with me about this. Which is great. So, watching Oldman upend and subvert Le Carré's signature creation in Slow Horses, might even be my favourite thing about the show.

Slow Horses is an adaptation of a series of books by Mick Herron. It is set in a dumping ground for disgraced MI5 agents, a few miles across London from the actual

headquarters. This collection of misfits and embarrassments are given the most menial tasks, but are also useful to MI5 as a deniable resource for any off-the-books shenanigans.

Running the crew is the apparently drunk and heroically flatulent Jackson Lamb, played by Oldman as the perfect anti-Smiley: a spy who came in from the cold after sleeping in a ditch and breaking into a bottle-store on the way home.

Oldman's Lamb is a magnificent creation and Slow Horses erupts into life whenever he is on-screen. Oldman's scenes with his opposite number at head office – Kristin Scott Thomas, with all her phasers set to “haughty” – are the best thing about Slow Horses. But the show is a treat all the way down.

In the support roles, Jack Lowden (Dunkirk) is effective and intelligent as a

young agent desperate to get back to the real work, while Olivia Cooke (Sound of Metal) lights up the first series as someone who seems suspiciously too competent and smart to be in purgatory at all.

Slow Horses is a superb show to catch up with, especially a few years after everyone was raving about it. The writing is deft, dark and funny and the action is quick and unpredictable. And with Oldman and Scott Thomas knocking chunks off each other as they fart and pout their way through their believable and hilarious love-hate collaboration, a TV show that could have been merely good, becomes flat-out great. Go and have a look.

The first two episodes of Slow Horses’ third season are now available to stream on Apple TV+. That’s where you’ll also find the first two seasons.