When it comes to humanising the violent instinct, Bennett got in a lot of match practice with Top Boy. But where Hackney’s anti-heroes could be drawn as products of their environment, it’s a taller order eliciting sympathy for this devil. Dead-eyed, yes. Doe-eyed? For goodness’ sake.
What’s behind his chilly psychopathy stays enigmatic until after a twisty episode seven. Mostly, he’s a blank even to a wife in whose language he is oddly mute. Her not-unreasonable suspicions form one subplot. This being Bennett, we also visit Northern Ireland, ushering in a cross-examination of ethical state-sanctioned killing.
MI6, which Lia Williams runs as warmly as she did the Post Office, are on the Jackal’s tail in the shape of Bianca Pullman. As played by Lashana Lynch, she’s a nice sharp-shooting mum whose family are foggy – indeed tetchy – about why she can’t make parents’ evening. Thus the far-fetched concealments in the Jackal’s marriage are mirrored in hers.
When cat and mouse are equally saddled with work/life balance issues, the main event of the chase is prone to misfire and mid-story sag. Still, the otherness of Redmayne compels. Having played Stephen Hawking and a Danish transsexual, he is a proven master of disguise. Yet somehow, even caked in Latex, there are always the ice-blue pupils and whip-thin frame, the Aardmanesque overbite and Etonian aura. Redmayne’s weird wanderer feels uncannily like an audition to play another ultra-English icon. The name’s Stewart. Rory Stewart.
The Day of the Jackal is on Sky Atlantic/Now on Thursday November 7