In the ‘keep everyone alive’ goal, it’s no real spoiler to say that Abby and Joe don’t succeed. Not everybody makes it, but each of the passengers does get a go under the ‘are they guilty?’ spotlight. The spinning carousel of suspects is an opportunity taken by creator Nick Leather (The Control Room, Mother’s Day, Murdered for Being Different) to sprinkle over some state-of-the-nation and class-clash texture. In short: if hell is other people, then that goes double when you’re hurtling towards certain doom at 110mph in club class and there’s a free bar.
Character-wise, it’s a country house murder mystery-style mix, and almost everybody has something to hide. There’s an abrasive accountant (Alex Ferns), a self-interested politician (Sharon Small), an activist solicitor (Ruth Madeley), a truth-seeking journalist (Katie Leung), a retired train driver (Brian Cosmo), a couple of train workers (Sharon Rooney and Scott Reid)… Over in HQ is a similar assortment of stern authority figures (Pamela Nomvete), narky stick-in-the-muds (Parth Thakerer), and tech genius renegades (Gabriel Howell). David Threlfall’s Pev is one of the latter, a beardy metal fan and ex-employee who left HQ under a cloud but who predicted this whole mess could happen and has come out of retirement to lend his expertise.
Everything goes as we’ve come to expect from the genre: action, tension, twists, brief attempts to construct (unnecessary, frankly, but the effort’s appreciated) emotional lives for the characters, more action, more twists… a lot of urgently delivered “secure the perimeter”-style instructions and breath-held moments while characters silently watch flashing lights on massive screens. If you enjoyed recent British thrillers Bodyguard, Vigil and Redeye, then you know the score. You’ll be gripped while you’re watching, but it’ll go out of your mind by the time the credits roll and won’t trouble you until you’re next fighting for a seat on the daily commute.
Generally though, it’s compelling stuff, well-handled by directors John Hayes and Jamie Magnus Stone, with two good leads in Roach and Cole, and a fun sideline in satirical swipes at government and, of course, the UK rail service. As a story of course, it’s also totally unrealistic, far-fetched, and would never happen in real life. That train from Glasgow to London only left the station 10 minutes late and involved not a single rail replacement bus. Ridiculous.
All episodes of Nightsleeper are available to stream on BBC iPlayer now.
