‘Page Eight’ Continues as the Worricker Trilogy Comes to America This November
The original Page Eight aired on both BBC Two and PBS in 2011 and follows the story of Johnny Worricker, an MI-5 agent who discovers a potentially explosive report that alleges the British Prime Minister has details about the US government torturing prisoners in secret overseas prisons. A moral crisis ensues, Worricker’s boss/mentor figure dies, and he ends up leaving the country to destinations unknown to face an uncertain future.
For the sequels, the always amazing Bill Nighy reprises his role as Worricker from the original Page Eight in two more feature length episodes. He is joined by an all-star cast Christopher Walken, Helena Bonham Carter, Ralph Fiennes, Rupert Graves, James Naughton, Felicity Jones, Judy Davis and more. (You may remember that Fiennes and Davis both appeared in Page Eight as well.)
Both installments will air on Masterpiece this Fall, on November 9 and 16, respectively.
Learn more and watch the UK trailers for both below.
The story of Turks and Caicos picks up basically where we left off in the first installment. Johnny Worricker has walked out of his job at MI5, going to the airport apparently to choose his destination at random. But his presence on the obscure islands of Turks & Caicos brings him a new problem: he is being forced by the CIA to deal with a group of ambiguous Americans who are on the islands for a high-level conference on the world financial crisis. At the same time, an old girlfriend, Margot Tyrell, is being asked to betray her boss in London in order to establish an illicit connection between the prime minister and dark goings-on in the ‘war on terror’.
Watch the BBC trailer for Turks and Caicos:
“We have assembled a most extraordinary cast for these two films,” said writer and director David Hare. “I think there may be two reasons for this – first and foremost, because so many actors want to appear alongside Bill Nighy, but secondly, because the audience responded so strongly to Page Eight – which has all the fun of spy fiction and is bang up to date and based in the real intelligence dilemmas of the last 10 years.”
The third and final installment of Worricker’s adventures is called Salting the Battlefield and wraps up the story begun back in Page Eight. Johnny Worricker and Margot Tyrell are on the run across Europe, with MI5 hard on their heels. But life in exile is proving much harder than either of them expected. Worricker knows that his only chance of resolving the issues in both his personal and his professional lives is if he returns home to confront the powerful Prime Minister, Alec Beasley. In a duel of wits between the two men, there will be only one winner.
Watch the BBC trailer for Salting the Battlefield:
If you need a refresher on what happened in Page Eight, you can watch it online via Amazon’s Prime Instant Video.
Thoughts on this? Are you looking forward to seeing Nighy return as Worricker?
