Spy another day
Newsreader and screenwriter Tom Bradby lifts the lid on Secret Service, ITV’s upcoming espionage thriller that stars Gemma Arterton as an MI6 officer attempting to maintain her family life while uncovering a Russian operative at the heart of the British government.
For more than a decade, Tom Bradby has relayed the biggest stories of the day in his trademark conversational style as the host of ITV’s News at Ten.
But for as long as he has been a journalist, he has enjoyed a parallel career as a writer, novelist and screenwriter. He adapted his own novel Shadow Dancer as a 2012 feature and wrote ITV’s 2014 historical drama The Great Fire, as well as publishing a slew of historical and political fiction novels.
Now, for his latest television project, Bradby has adapted another of his own novels, Secret Service, as a five-part series for ITV. The show has its world premiere at Content London tonight ahead of its network debut in 2026.
A timely and topical series that blends political intrigue with domestic drama, Gemma Arterton (Funny Woman) stars as Kate Henderson, a woman who appears to have an ordinary life married to Stuart (Rafe Spall) with two teenage children. However, she’s also a senior MI6 officer and the head of the Russia Desk at the Secret Intelligence Service.
When her undercover operations reveal alarming evidence that a high-ranking UK politician may be a Russian asset, Kate finds herself in a desperate race to uncover their identity. As a brutal murder thrusts her team into the spotlight and a race begins to become the next prime minister, Kate must navigate the dangerous world of espionage while trying to hold her family together and protect her reputation.
Filmed in Malta and London earlier this year, the series reunites Bradby with Shadow Dancer director James Marsh (Man on Wire). It is produced by Gail Egan and Andrea Calderwood at Potboiler Productions and distributed by All3Media International.
“It’s a weird thing when you’ve written the book and the script, because obviously you’re condensing down a book and changing it here and there,” Bradby tells DQ. “[But] you never really know [it works] until you’re on set and an actor delivers your lines. I just sat there on set every day, thinking, ‘Wow, these people are good.’ I’m really pleased with it, proud of it and thrilled with how it turned out.”
Across his screenwriting career, Bradby has worked on a “whole range” of projects. He previously tried to adapt another of his novels, The Master of Rain, which is back in development, while he has also worked on other people’s projects. Then around five years ago, he set out a plan to apply a “clear logic” to his writing career by attempting to turn every new book he writes into either a TV drama or a film. It means that as he writes the novel, he’s already thinking about the adaptation.
In fact, Secret Service – which was first published in 2019 – was originally conceived as a TV series. But when he went to pitch it, he was presented with ideas that weren’t in line with the kind of story he wanted to write. Now in a “long-term partnership” with Potboiler, Bradby says: “What I love about the process is you have your idea, you write your novel, and that gets published – and that’s great. It’s always been great, [it’s] still great. But then you get to start on another process.
“The level of talent on this project was just so phenomenal. I had a great co-writer, Jemma Kennedy. Gail, Andrea and Chloë [Sizer] at Potboiler are really good. You then get an Oscar-winning director, James. All of that helps you to get a great cast, so it was definitely one of the best, if not the best, working experiences of my life. It was absolutely fantastic.”
Both on the page and on the News at Ten, Bradby is always aiming to tell a “belting story.” “Where I can, I always try to make the news not completely po-faced. Sometimes politics is so ridiculous you can laugh about it, because otherwise you cry. But generally speaking, it’s not 700 laughs a programme, and a lot of it is unbearably serious and sometimes very sad,” he says.
But great storytelling in the news is a different thing from storytelling in a book or on screen, “and is therefore in a different bucket in my brain,” he continues. “The thing I would say about this [television] is that you want it to be an incredibly compelling story that just brings people in, where you have great characters and it’s tense and thrilling and emotional. Those are my driving factors. People have got to lose themselves in this and get to get to the end of five episodes and think, ‘Oh, where did where did the time go? Wow, that was entertaining.’ If we do that, that’d be great.”
Leaning into Bradby’s role as a newsreader, Secret Service offers a “peek behind the curtain” of the political world in which he operates daily, and he was always keen to ensure a level of authenticity in the series, not least in its plot relating to Russian interference.
To reflect the current Labour-led British government, he also made one change from the book relating to the candidates vying to become the next PM, with one switching from a right-wing populist in the book to a left-wing populist in the drama.
“You want people to feel, ‘Oh my God. Could this happen? Shit, maybe this is happening,’” Bradby continues. “You’re creating a fictional story, so you’re always letting your imagination fly in one way or another. But we’re on to planning a potential season two, I’ve just done two days in a writers room, and we had a hell of a time because we were talking about, ‘OK, this person is now in power. What’s that going to look like? How transgressive is that going to feel? How far are we going to go from where we are now?’ We war-gamed it, and we came up with something that felt very transgressive. Then as I came home, I thought, ‘Well, is that impossible? No, I really don’t think it is.’”
Describing his job as a newsreader as a “privilege” that allows him to speak to senior politicians and spies, Bradby says the role means he can get “amazing help” and insight into the stories he wants to tell and make them as realistic as possible. Some familiar faces from ITV – Robert Peston, Romilly Weeks, Susanna Reid and Ed Balls – are also seen on screen in Secret Service, while Bradby himself makes a cameo too.
But just as important as the politics in the show are the scenes set at home with Kate and Stuart. “I had the idea of the show: the prime minister was about to stand down, and one of the candidates to replace him was a Russian asset or spy, and you had to work out which one. Then I thought, well, who is this officer?” Bradby says. “Let’s say she’s a woman, she’s a mum and she’s trying to do what we’re all trying to do, which is to keep our family life happy and healthy. I just thought that was so intriguing, so that’s the heart of the show.”
He praises Arterton’s “fantastic” leading performance. But just as important was her warmth and “instant likeability,” making her the “heart of the show.”
“Rafe is fantastic as her husband as well. He’s also a great actor,” Bradby continues. “One of the things about having an Oscar-winning director is that you get an amazing cast. You really do. It’s a family story, and her attempts to deal with all this, running around Malta, lots of crazy stuff happens – and we’re trying to keep all that realistic as much as we can, by the way – but she’s trying to juggle family life as well, trying to hold it all together. That’s what I love most about the show, way above the politics.”
Might Bradby be expecting any feedback from Downing Street when Secret Service arrives on ITV next year? “Keir Starmer has quite a lot on his plate, but I think he might find it quite fun,” he says of the real-life UK prime minister. “You just want a hell of a lot of people to watch and absolutely love it. I do think there’s something for everyone in the show. Because at its heart it’s a family drama, because Gemma and Rafe are so good, and because there’s quite a lot of interesting stuff going on, I feel there’s something for everyone. It feels like something pretty much anyone could really enjoy.
“Sometimes things turn out the way you want, and sometimes they don’t quite, but this really turned out 10 times better than I’d even dared to hope. I’m very thrilled.”
Like that? Watch this! Suggested by AI, selected by DQ
Hostage: The newly elected UK prime minister faces her worst nightmare when her husband is kidnapped during a key state visit, forcing her to choose between her family’s safety and the stability of her government as a blackmailer weaponises both her office and her marriage.
Bodyguard: A traumatised Afghanistan veteran assigned to protect the UK home secretary finds his personal loyalties tested as he’s drawn into a web of terrorism, media scrutiny and political power plays that threaten both his career and his already fragile family life.
The Diplomat: An experienced US diplomat unexpectedly becomes ambassador to the UK just as an international crisis erupts, forcing her to juggle high-wire negotiations, intelligence games and the slow implosion of her marriage to a famous political operator.
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tagged in: All3Media International, Gemma Arterton, ITV, Potboiler Productions, Secret Service, Tom Bradby