TV Review: SS-GB

Starring Sam Riley, Kate Bosworth, James Cosmo

BBC1 9PM Sunday


After the much noted complaints about mumbling, what is SS-GB like? I would  say at this stage one of the best dramas to hit UK TV screens this year. In the first 10 minutes a Spitfire is landed in front of Buckingham Palace by a Luftwaffe ace who is then killed by a British resistance fighter. This sets the tone for the drama of a country that has been conquered and those who are having to adjust life under the Nazis. San Riley plays the main of a police detective who through the investigation of the murder of a supposed back marketeer brings him into a much serious situation than he would like. Riley gives a performance that brings to mind a young John Hurt as someone who has to work with conquerors and walking his own path. In the role of an American journalist Kate Bosworth makes an impression in the short time she appears in the first episode (a much better one than the time she played Lois Lane in Superman Returns) that you are left wondering about her exact nature. SS-GB so far has showed a what could have been perfectly that you are glad history turned out the way it did.