Slow Horses creator Mick Herron has revealed the Apple TV adaptation of his books starring Gary Oldman as spymaster Jackson Lamb was delayed by a year – because he forgot to tell lawyers one of its characters had been in an earlier novel. This prompted “dead silence” among legal experts and then a year of talks – despite there being a simple solution.
Mick, 62, was in conversation with the show’s screenwriter Will Smith, 54, at the recent Theakston Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival in Harrogate, supported by the Express. During this Mick, inset right, admitted regretting having used “Bad” Sam Chapman in his Slough House books.
Bad Sam was a former MI5 internal security officer, known as a Head Dog, turned private detective who first appeared in Reconstruction, a standalone novel about six people facing the worst day of their lives published two years before the series began. Bad Sam then appeared in the early Slough House novels but was not listed as such in talks about the TV adaptation.
Mick said: “I would not have brought him into the Slough House series had I talked to the producers first, because he basically delayed everything by about a year. They had drawn up this contract for the option and these things get discussed for months and months.
“There is noise in Hollywood and there is noise in London, a lot of long-distance phone calls and Zooms, and towards the end of the process someone asked me ‘have we covered all the characters here? Are these the only ones that appear?’.
“And I said ‘oh but this one, he was in an earlier book of mine’. There was dead silence and then another year of conversations about this. I think in the end it was solved by my saying, ‘Yes, you can use that character’. They just had to ask me, but I think a lot of lawyers’ fees were involved.”
Actress Saskia Reeves, 63, who portrays Lamb’s trusted office manager Catherine Standish in Slow Horses, also made a surprise appearance during the special event at The Old Swan Hotel last Sunday.