There’s a saying among performers: if you want to work in Ireland, move to England. (Once you leave, the offers pour in, or so the logic goes.)

For Tyrone actor Katherine Devlin, this couldn’t have been more on the nose. In 2022, she was in a Westfield Shopping Centre picking up bits to furnish the London flat for which she had just signed a lease. A few days prior, she had packed her worldly belongings into two suitcases and hauled them across the Irish Sea.

Now, as she lugged a “huge new duvet”, freshly purchased, through the mall, a call came through from her agent. She had landed the role of Annie Conlon in the Belfast cop drama, Blue Lights.

“Within a week I had to pack everything up,” she says. “I mean, I hadn’t even unpacked, that’s the thing. And I went back home.”

Having graduated drama school a year previously, Devlin had been collecting smaller parts in the likes of Netflix’s Vikings, and Element’s The Dig, but this was new territory. She’d play a central role, as one of three rookie Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) officers, in a prime-time BBC series.

“I had huge imposter syndrome walking into Blue Lights season one,” she says. “[In drama school] we get training when it comes to screen acting, and when it comes to acting in general theatre, but you learn on the job – you really do. It’s the small things that you can’t really teach, like making your mark, and the technicalities surrounding it, and being on the same page as the DOP [director of photography]. When you’re in the rhythm of it, that’s when you pick it up.”

Co-star and seasoned actor Siân Brooke (who has starred in Sherlock, Dr Foster and Trying), was a grounding influence.

“She said a couple of things that really stuck with me,” says Devlin. “She was like, look: if there’s anything you need, just come to me, because I’ve been there before. But also – and I stand by this, too – the fear aspect doesn’t really end. You’re always going to be rocking up to set nervous, because you care.”

Following new recruits, Grace (Siân Brooke), Tommy (Nathan Braniff) and Annie (Katherine Devlin) as they navigate the challenges and idiosyncrasies of frontline policing in contemporary Belfast, Blue Lights went on to receive widespread critical acclaim. It wasn’t long before Devlin was walking the Bafta red carpet in Alexander McQueen after season two got nominated in the Best Drama Series category (it clinched the win).

“We were filming at the time, and then got news that we’d been nominated,” she says. “Everybody was cheering and clapping and loving life, but also, on the flip side, we were like: we still need to film season three.

“It was just chaos … I remember immediately getting on to a stylist. I had some sort of vision of what I wanted to wear. I didn’t think that would be McQueen, which was incredible. We landed there and it was just surreal, totally surreal.”

Devlin is speaking over Zoom ahead of the release of season three. A fourth season has also been greenlit.

She’s back living in London – second time’s a charm – and has just got a cat, Lughnasa, who skulks behind her on the couch. Devlin sits in front of a blank wall – nothing to see here – but has a face you cannot look away from, and it is this, with her dark features and pale-to-translucent skin, that fills the screen.

The curious intensity of this face is part of what makes her so compelling as Annie, a fiery young Catholic officer, whose many layers peel back as the seasons proceed.

“Me and Annie are quite similar,” she says. “She’s from a Catholic background, so am I. There was something there that I could really relate to, especially being Irish and being from the North. Annie isn’t from Belfast – she’s from the Glens of Antrim. So, she’s a country girl, and I’m sort of a country girl, too.” (Devlin grew up “between the town and countryside” in Cookstown, Co Tyrone).

What does she think compels a young Catholic woman like Annie to join the PSNI?

“It’s a constant question, especially this season with Annie, where there are a lot of sacrifices being made … At the minute, within the PSNI, 32 per cent are Catholic. [The Catholic population] is underrepresented, and it has been for numerous reasons, such as mistrust within Catholic communities dating back to the Troubles and the RUC … There’s a lovely scene in season three [where] Tommy asks: why are we doing this? Why are we sacrificing so much? Because they are – it’s a real vocation. And Annie and a couple of others say: because it’s important. I think that’s what it boils down to.”

Co-created by Declan Lawn and Adam Patterson, who both hail from the North and who first met as reporters on BBC’s Panorama, the show has an authenticity and lightness of touch that sets it apart.

“It is a police show that isn’t copaganda – that isn’t sleek and sexy. You’re seeing real-life police officers that have their flaws. It’s also a show that isn’t afraid to ask big questions and show those hard-hitting topics.”

In season three, the complexities and injustices of class are under the microscope, as the officers reckon with the hidden world of white collar-criminals who facilitate organised crime.

“They’re very much within the belly of the beast in this season, and dealing with a system that is so much bigger than themselves and super-overwhelming for them as characters,” says Devlin. “There’s a lot of really heavy stuff. They bring up a super hard-hitting topic about car accidents within the North. There’s a scene where Aisling [Dearbháile McKinney] and Annie arrive to a car accident, and it offers up this question of how people deal with trauma, and how they deal with grief.”

[ Blue Lights review: This compelling show is a rare spark in the moribund world of Irish crime televisionOpens in new window ]

Along with hard-hitting topics, we can also expect stunts, car chases, action.

“I always love the chases – that’s when you have to try and keep your cool and act as if you’re not enjoying it.”

And three seasons in, Devlin, like her character, is quite literally settling into the uniform.

“The uniform is naturally very heavy. It’s a really good way into the character, because it changes your whole posture. It changes the way you walk. Getting used to that was a bit of a struggle.

“But then, also, we have a fantastic police advisor on set that we can go to if we want to ask a question. He’s super on it when it comes to making sure that we’re … staying true to how it’s supposed to be.”

The daughter of a civil engineer father and artist mother, Devlin knew she wanted to be an actor from a young age, and saw performance as a way of expressing her big imagination.

“I loved the idea of just stepping into different character. I was really shy in school, and I remember being petrified at the idea of having to speak, or to read out loud, in class.

“The idea of being perceived as myself was actually very terrifying. But when it came to the acting side of things, there was a real comfortability.”

She took drama classes as a child, and remembers her first performance, aged nine, wearing a flamboyant red hat and doing a Southern American accent, on stage in the Burnavon Theatre in Cookstown. Later, having turned down several university offers, she completed a foundation course in Acting and Theatre at Dublin’s Lir Academy, before working in a Dublin sushi restaurant.

She recalls this as one of her “fondest memories … I think everybody should have some experience of dealing with the public and [doing a job] such as waitressing”. After this, she went on to train at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama in Cardiff.

While the Lir boasts a number of well-known alumni, most notably Paul Mescal, the notion of fame is not something that appeals to Devlin.

“I think what makes a truthful, good actor is somebody that doesn’t want to be famous. The people that go into it to become famous, in my opinion, nine times out of 10, aren’t great actors. You follow the craft of it, and you follow that truth.”

For the large majority, acting means grit, not glamour.

“It’s a super tough industry, and it’s extremely competitive. It’s a constant journey and a constant battle within yourself as well – making sure you stay true to who you are, but also picking yourself time and time again when you do get those rejections … There’s such unknown territory within this industry. You never know what’s around the corner.

“You either get sucked up by it, or you relish and enjoy the idea of the unknown, so that’s what I’m trying to do.”

Blue Lights returns to BBC One on Monday, September 29th.

It’s April, and the cherry blossoms around the suburban homes of Terenure, in Dublin, are in full bloom. Marian Keyes is sitting in a cosy chair, with her feet up on a stool, in a garden shed. This is not just any garden shed. The sign on the door reads The Department of Calm and Efficiency. Inside it are a TV and shelves heaving with golf trophies. A framed T-shirt on a wall reads Minister of Cop On.

This shed belongs to Daddy Walsh, husband of Mammy Walsh, father of the five Walsh sisters, all characters loved by millions of readers of Keyes’ bestselling novels. The cast and crew are coming to the end of an 11-week shoot for The Walsh Sisters, RTÉ’s highly anticipated TV adaptation of two of her novels about the family.

“Isn’t it wonderful?” Keyes says as she looks around the cluttered space, thinking of her late father. “My dad would have loved a man shed. Somewhere to watch the golf in peace, that’s all he asked for. He would have locked the door and eaten crisps and chocolate and been in here for hours.”

Visiting the set has been a surreal and satisfying experience for Keyes. This adaptation has been a long time coming. She has sold more than 35 million copies of her more than 20 books, in 33 languages, yet Watermelon, her first novel and the first of several to feature the Walsh family, is the only one to have made it to television screens, back in 2003.

Keyes’ second novel, Rachel’s Holiday, a darkly subversive romantic comedy about Rachel Walsh and her descent into, and recovery from, drug and alcohol addiction, was first optioned in 1998. Keyes and her husband, Tony Baines, were flown first class to Los Angeles “and put up in a swanky hotel”. Nothing came of that trip, but lately there has been a clamour to present her work to existing fans and, it’s safe to imagine, a new generation of readers.

“You wait years for an adaptation and then two come along at once,” Keyes says about the fact that a Netflix version of her novel Grown Ups is also in the works. That one is being filmed around Dublin as well, helmed by Samantha Strauss, the woman behind the streamer’s hit show Apple Cider Vinegar. Its impressively starry cast includes Aisling Bea, Robert Sheehan, Sinéad Cusack and Adrian Dunbar.

“It’s great that it’s happening now, but I never minded,” Keyes says. “I always said the books were enough by themselves – they don’t need to be legitimised by another medium. But I do have to say this: The Walsh Sisters has been worth waiting for … The writing is brilliant, the women playing the sisters are all fabulous. I couldn’t be happier.”

Keyes had no interest in writing the series herself. In fact, she was the one who recommended that producers consider Stefanie Preissner, the writer behind RTÉ’s hit show Can’t Cope, Won’t Cope and the play Solpadeine Is My Boyfriend.

Keyes speaks admiringly of Preissner, who has taken her novels Rachel’s Holiday and Anybody Out There, written in the 1990s and partly set in New York, and transplanted them firmly to contemporary Dublin to create The Walsh Sisters.

The RTÉ series, made in association with the BBC, follows the messy lives of the five Walsh sisters as they navigate the chaos, self-destruction and sisterly dynamics of their late 20s and early 30s.

The sisters have a lot going on: there’s Claire, the overwhelmed single mother (who’s played by Danielle Galligan); the dependable Maggie (Preissner herself), who is desperate for a baby of her own; Rachel (Caroline Menton), who’s in denial about her addiction issues; the loved-up Anna (Louisa Harland), who’s facing a profound personal crisis; and Helen (Máiréad Tyers), the youngest, who is stuck living at home and dealing with her own secret struggles.

[ Marian Keyes on casting The Walsh Sisters: ‘The big worry was who is playing Luke Costello?’Opens in new window ]

Rachel’s Holiday was heavily inspired by Keyes’ own experience of alcoholism. Before she became a writer she attended the Rutland Centre in Dublin to be treated for her condition. As loyal readers will know, Rachel’s “holiday” turns out to be a spell in a treatment centre called the Cloisters, where various members of the Walsh family attend sessions to tell Rachel exactly how her addiction has affected them.

In the shed, Keyes, who has been sober for more than 30 years, is thinking about her first visit to the set with Baines, watching on a screen as Mammy, who is played by Carrie Crowley, and Daddy Walsh – “lovely Aidan Quinn, in his slip-on shoes and anorak” – walked up the path to the Cloisters.

“It was emotional for both of us,” Keyes says. “It’s hard to describe. It’s not like the characters are our children or anything, but they came from my head with Tony’s help, and we’ve both felt a lot of ownership of them.”

The author remembers, early in the process, being on a video call with the producer Dixie Linder, the director Ian Fitzgibbon and the five actors cast as the sisters.

“The five of them were all talking over each other, exactly the way I am in my family,” says Keyes, who also grew up with four siblings. “The chemistry between them was real. I believed they were a family. Then seeing them on set for the first time was just a thrill.

“It’s an incredible thing, watching these characters you made up in your head talking and walking around on a television set wearing sunglasses and bomber jackets. And the wonderful thing is they are each different, each exactly as I imagined them.”

It’s seven years since Preissner flew to London to pitch her vision of The Walsh Sisters to producers. A lot has happened in her life since then, including a new relationship, a wedding, the birth of her two children and the death of her grandmother, “a massive Marian Keyes fan”.

Talking during a brief break in filming, Preissner is recalling that meeting in London where, having done a deep dive into the Keyes books she’d been reading for years, she laid out her vision for how she’d go about adapting Walshworld for television if she were given the chance. Other writers were being considered, but Preissner got the job.

Although each of the Walsh family novels, from Watermelon to Again, Rachel, focuses on a different sister, Preissner wanted to create a world where all the sisters and their storylines could exist together. It was a tricky puzzle, because they were all at different ages and stages in each of the novels. Keyes says Preissner has a brain “like a Rubik’s cube”, which came in handy when she was writing the show.

“I needed to pick storylines that would bring them all together,” Preissner says. “Ian [Fitzgibbon] and I have a saying: ‘Where two or more of the Walsh sisters are gathered, Jesus is present.’ It’s just so good when the sisters are together, so I wanted them to all be in the same world.”

Transposing the action from the 1990s setting of the novels was an interesting challenge, Preissner says. The Mammy Walsh we see in the TV version, for example, is different in some ways from the Mammy in the books – “she has an iPad and probably doesn’t go to Mass” – although her frustration and disappointment with some of the life choices of her more dysfunctional daughters remain unchanged.

There were other challenges in adapting the novels for a contemporary audience. Preissner says she talked a lot to Keyes about the novels, which she says in parts were “fatphobic, white and heteronormative”, a product of the times in which they were written. (“My thinking has changed profoundly since then,” Keyes says, “and it’s a special kind of shame to have opinions that hurt people enshrined in books that were written 20 or 30 years ago. All I can do is do better now that I know better.”)

“I asked Marian if we could change that up, and she was totally open to it,” Preissner says. This is reminiscent of Element Pictures’ TV adaptation of Sally Rooney’s Normal People, which contained more diversity than the novel.

For the Dubliner Caroline Menton, a relative newcomer seen most recently in the Irish horror movie Oddity, playing the part of Rachel was a huge opportunity. “It’s a dream role,” she says. Did she feel the pressure and expectations of readers on her shoulders in portraying a legend of popular Irish fiction?

“Well, yeah, it was a big responsibility,” she says. Menton hopes that she has done the character justice and that fans of the novels will approve. It was important, she says, given Rachel’s backstory, to delve into her issues. Keyes says that Menton “did her research, she knows her Gabor Maté, she knows that the question is not why the addiction but why the pain?”

[ Gabor Maté: I began to notice that the people who got chronically ill had trouble saying ‘no’Opens in new window ]

Before filming began, Menton visited a drug-rehabilitation centre. “I went there and got to speak to someone who was really vulnerable and open and kind enough to share their story with me. It was an eye-opener.”

It’s a nuanced story. Rachel, with her stable family background and no obvious trauma, shows that addiction does not discriminate. “And this is the power of Marian Keyes,” Preissner says. “If that novel had been called Girl With a Needle in Her Arm, nobody would have brought it to read on the beach. Marian hides the vegetables in the chocolate.”

With the global success of Sharon Horgan’s award-winning Apple TV+ series Bad Sisters, there’s no denying that Irish sisters have been enjoying a moment. Does Preissner have any thoughts on the inevitable comparisons between the two shows, which are both set in Dublin and feature gobby, funny, middle-class Irish sisters?

She says it did lead to some discussion about whether to keep “sisters” in the title of the show, which was in development well before Bad Sisters came along. “It definitely helps that our show is based on Marian’s books – like, I haven’t just created a show based on five sisters,” she says. “I also think Bad Sisters is very plot driven, where ours is more character driven.”

As with Horgan, who played a sister in her show, Preissner has taken a lot on, starring in the show as Maggie Walsh while also writing most of the episodes.

When it comes to the other sisters, it seems reasonable to assume that the show will make stars out of the young ensemble cast. Apart from Louisa Harland, who played Orla in Derry Girls and does a stunning turn as Anna Walsh, most of them are relatively unknown.

[ Derry Girls’ Saoirse-Monica Jackson: ‘Dyslexia shaped me. I’m always thinking two steps ahead’Opens in new window ]

Máiréad Tyers is outstanding as the youngest Walsh. Menton is being spoken of as a potential breakout star. “Whatever happens beyond this point, I did my dream job, and I got to work with these amazing people,” the young actor says.

Preissner has other concerns. “Our big fear is that we’re going to get commissioned for The Walsh Sisters season two and she’s going to be booked on something else,” she says in mock indignation. “I will be here for it, I will,” Menton promises. “You’d f**king better,” Preissner says, laughing.

The cameras are rolling, and I’m standing in the front garden of the Walsh family home, having a whispered conversation with Aidan Quinn. Metres from us, Luke Costello, played by Jay Duffy, is knocking at the Walshes’ door after a harrowing visit to Rachel, his girlfriend, in rehab.

Quinn is carrying a prop, a copy of Ticket, The Irish Times’ culture supplement. “It’s a great newspaper,” he whispers. That’s not the only reason we’re blushing. For some of us of a certain age Quinn will always be the handsome star of the Madonna film Desperately Seeking Susan, from 1985.

The actor, who lives with his family in New York, also whispers that there was a 10-year period when he couldn’t get to work in Ireland because of commitments in the United States. “So it’s really very nice to come back here,” he says.

He is full of praise for Crowley, who plays the overbearing, perennially put-upon Mammy Walsh. “She has all the best lines,” he says. I mention a scene in a hotel where he is trying to get romantic with her. “I don’t get very far on that occasion.”

Quinn is called inside by the director, but later I get a quick moment upstairs in the house with Crowley, who mentions the same hotel scene and adopts her Mammy Walsh persona: “I mean, where in my head do you think I have room to think about sex today with all that is going on?”

The star of An Cailín Ciúin has a good feeling about the show. “You never know until you see the finished product, but sometimes you have a positive feeling. I’ve got that feeling about this.”

She asks what scenes I’ve watched so far. I tell her about the one with Luke. “Ridey Luke!” she exclaims, using a word that is an essential part of the Keyes canon. We agree that Duffy does indeed tick all the boxes required of the romantic hero of Rachel’s Holiday.

“And do you know who his father is?” Crowley asks, beaming. Duffy’s father is the Coronation Street actor and former Boyzone star Keith Duffy. “Also ridey,” Crowley declares before heading off for her next scene.

Every so often on the set of The Walsh Sisters someone will say, “Let’s consult the source of the Nile.” That’s how Fitzgibbon and Preissner refer to Keyes. Back in the shed, the writer told me that she was flattered by the fact that the cast and crew – she had many of them over to her home for a party before shooting began – would text her about everything from costume choices to character motivation.

Duffy, whose casting is arguably the most intensely scrutinised of the show, took full advantage of “the source”. Keyes has been extremely vocal about “the thing with Luke. There was a lot of pressure coming over the wires from the fans, saying, ‘Just don’t f**k this up.’ Everyone has their own idea of what Luke looks like. For me he’s like a young Keanu Reeves, but other people have completely different pictures. It needed to be right.”

Taking a break from the set with Galligan, Duffy reflects on the expectations of fans. “When you step into something which is loved that much you’re kind of, like, ‘Oh my God’. There’s a lot of pressure, but it’s the same as with any role: whether it’s loved by fans of a book series or not, you have a responsibility to do your best and trust that you are enough … But then to have Marian a phone call away was brilliant.”

What did he ask her? “I wanted to know who Luke was outside of his relationship with Rachel. What makes him tick? What’s his flaw? Because a lot of the book is about how amazing he is and how much charisma he has. But nobody is perfect. And she told me that he sees the world in black and white. He’s very set in his beliefs. That was helpful.”

Galligan, who also has a role in House of Guinness, the new Netflix drama, was one of the final sisters to be cast. She says she auditioned for two other sisters “but I fluffed it”. It was both a relief and a thrill when, after a long Christmas on tenterhooks, she was told she had landed the part of Claire, the glam single mother.

Filming is nearly over when we meet. She says the cast have become like a real family. “We’ll miss each other when it’s all over.” As with everyone else involved in The Walsh Sisters, Galligan can’t wait to see how audiences react.

“Stefanie has written a really compelling, grounded drama about a family with everyday, real life issues, about addiction, about grief, about sisterhood. But she’s done it in such a way that’s so Irish in the sense that it’s light and funny at times, but also really heavy and emotional.

“And that’s why I was so excited to be a part of it. I think she’s done an amazing job capturing Marian’s beloved characters and adapting them brilliantly to the world we’re in now.”

The Walsh Sisters begins on RTÉ One and RTÉ Player at 9.30pm on Sunday, September 28th; The Walsh Sisters: The Official Podcast, presented by Marian Keyes and Stefanie Preissner, will be available straight after each episode

The Book Club Live: Summer Reads with Marian Keyes

Listen | 81:02

It’s the spy-themed show about “losers, misfits and boozers” that revels in ineptitude, celebrates shabbiness and lingers on hapless, disillusioned cast-offs. Coincidentally, lots of journalists adore it.

The irony is that Slow Horses triumphs where many other television series now fail, in that it returns before time can wipe its existence clean from your mind and you no longer identify as the person you were when you last saw the thing.

Its first season landed on Apple TV+ in the spring of 2022. Aided by back-to-back series filming and a snappy, old-fashioned “six and done” episode count, its fifth season began this week, which makes Slow Horses the slickest and most efficient TV drama in Britain.

This clockwork approach was once the norm, but today you can be waiting several vibe shifts for a hit show to grace a streamer or broadcaster again, its budget having rocketed in tandem with the height of its child stars in the meantime. Slow Horses, by contrast, is so redolent of classic British television that I almost expect a retro spinning-globe BBC ident to pop up before each episode.

According to Jay Hunt, a former BBC and Channel 4 executive who is now creative director for Apple TV+ in Europe, the BBC passed on Slow Horses, which she attributed to its “hybrid tone”.

“People go, is that show a comedy? Is that show a drama? And so in, a weird way, that represents risk,” she said in 2024.

I don’t just love a hybrid tone. When I see the review-speak “tonally all over the place” I usually register that as a positive. Life isn’t monotonal, and I don’t want art to be. The hybrid tone of Slow Horses is not just part of why I think it’s brilliant, it’s exactly why.

The series, adapted from Mick Herron’s Slough House novels about failed MI5 agents, is sometimes billed as a spy thriller, and if you watched season three, for instance, with increasing levels of dread, you’ll know that tag isn’t wrong.

But Slow Horses is a comedy at heart. That Will Smith, its showrunner – sadly obliged by the tight schedule to step back after this season – started out as a stand-up comedian is just one clue. The basic premise of Slough House, a fringe office for “f**k-ups”, recalls the “idiot surrounded by even bigger idiots” model of the traditional British sitcom. Like all the most enduring comedy characters, the “slow horses” banished there are trapped.

The theme of professional incompetence is itself a meta joke. A string of screen treatments have bashed us over the head with the idea that spies are smooth, superskilled types. If they’re not slaloming across continents defeating global threats before breakfast, like James Bond, they exude quiet dignity and integrity, like John le Carré’s George Smiley.

They’re not supposed to forget to load their guns, clumsily spill cartridges while under attack, be instantly spotted while tailing someone or struggle to get an electric bike to function as their getaway vehicle.

[ Slow Horses review: Dour, dumpy and depressed, is this the broken Britain of spy dramas?Opens in new window ]

They’re not meant to have holes in their socks or be spluttering, dishevelled, hygiene-challenged misanthropes devoted to chain-smoking, whisky-necking and serial farting, like Slough House’s ringmaster, Jackson Lamb. That Gary Oldman, who played Smiley in the 2011 film of Tinker Tailer Soldier Spy (the one he should have won the Oscar for), inhabits Lamb with such obvious delight only underlines the contrast.

Slow Horses is a show of contrasts. In the opening episode of the fifth season, based on Herron’s book London Rules, we see River Cartwright (portrayed with glorious comic timing by Jack Lowden) lumber up the grotty office staircase with Tesco bags. His starting point is mundanity, there to throw future dangers into sharp relief.

Slough House, a purgatory of bad moods, grimy windows, empty takeaway containers and chaotic box-file clutter, is counterpointed by MI5’s fictionalised “Park” headquarters, presented as a hermetically sealed, pot-planted palace populated by empty suits – who, for all their resources and imperiousness, are regularly outfoxed by Lamb.

The London of Slow Horses is a wet patchwork of alleys, drains and shuttered shops where rubbish piles up in disused phone boxes, not all of the coffee is drinkable and shiny financial-district buildings loom with extraordinary audacity over the mid-century flats where people actually live. It’s the hybrid landscape of Brexit Britain writ large on the screen.

[ Slow Horses returns: ‘Readers know by now I’m capable of killing off whoever is in danger,’ says creator Mick HerronOpens in new window ]

Indeed, its intrinsic Britishness makes the BBC’s decision to not pick up Slow Horses seem like a telling moment in the transfer of power away from national broadcasters to deeper-pocketed US-owned streamers. You might even call it a mistake worthy of a slow horse.

But this is a city show that hinges on expensive location work. Once you start to notice the cleverness with which the producers have selected and dressed their spots, it’s hard not to be glad that Slow Horses has Apple money behind it. Even the shadows of London don’t come cheap.