Find all previous and future episodes listed here or in your podcast app under “Barbican Station”.
We talk about the sixth and final episode of the first season of the new Apple TV Plus adaptation of Slow Horses. In the first part we talk about impressions of the first few episodes before taking a break and returning to talk in depth about the sixth episode. My guest this week is Lloyd Shepherd. Lloyd is an author and podcaster.
We talk about Peter Judd and Boris Johnson, Curiously Specific locations in SLOW HORSES, and Mick Herron’s cameo on the show. Plus the Min’s “mild imbecility”, the comedy pedigree of the show’s writers and dive deep on glasses. All that and much more in this episode.
Leave me your comments for a future show at PodInbox.com/spy!
Come back next week as I talk about burning questions ahead of the release of Bad Actors.
Lloyd’s Website – https://lloydshepherdwriter.wordpress.com/
Curiously Specific episode on Slow Horses – https://curiouslyspecific.com/2021/03/19/slow-horses/
Curiously Specific Podcast – https://curiouslyspecific.com/
CS episode on The Ipcress File – https://curiouslyspecific.com/2020/06/26/the-ipcress-file/
CS episode on Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy – https://curiouslyspecific.com/2021/04/30/tinker-tailor-soldier-spy/
The Guardian article that discusses Herron’s and Johnson’s time at university together –https://www.theguardian.com/books/2021/jan/15/mick-herron-i-look-at-jackson-lamb-and-think-my-god-did-i-write-that-my-mother-reads-this-stuff
Lloyd’s Twitter feed is here.
Wimpole’s Folly – The location where they filmed Hassan’s rescue – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wimpole%27s_Folly
FOUR LIONS – The film Lloyd mentions having a similar sense of dark humor – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Lions
My original review of the book. The Barbican Station episode on the book Slow Horses.
Follow the latest news about the upcoming AppleTV adaption here.
For more on the slow horses, click here.
Track down the real Slough House here.
Does this need correcting? – “School” is NOT the same as University in the UK! Mick and Boris were at Balliol College, Oxford at the same time. I don’t know where Mick went to school prior to that, but it was likely to be in Newcastle on Tyne rather than Eton. (Am ready to be corrected if I’m wrong. )
Updated! Sorry, I’m a foolish American still coming to terms with all these UK terms!
Cheers Jeff – and I think I’ve just found further corroboration. This Guardian interview with Mick at the time of the “Slough House” publication quotes him saying about being a “northern comprehensive type” and not mixing with the Bullingdon Club…
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2021/jan/15/mick-herron-i-look-at-jackson-lamb-and-think-my-god-did-i-write-that-my-mother-reads-this-stuff
It’s the good old British Class System.dontcherknow! From aged 11 to 18 it’s Public/private schools for the Toffs (fee paying) then State Education for the rest of us; Grammar School if available, depending on local area, Comprehensive, and a few Technical schools. Many are now leaving Local Authority Control and becoming Academies (basically for the cachet and snob value added in parental eyes)
There: you are now an expert in the British secondary education system! Post 18 (tertiary) are the Universities – again displaying a bit of a class divide like Ivy League colleges in the USA. If you are clever enough you can get in to Oxford or Cambridge, (many colleges within that system) but my husband, who was at Pembroke, Cambrdge, told me that someone not from quite the right social background can feel at a disadvantage. A great number of our most famous actors went to Oxford or Cambridge, Stephen Fry, Emma Thompson, Dominic West, Hugh Laurie, John Cleese, Peter Cook, Dudley Moore…