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London. Christmastime. Politician’s wife Helen Webb (Keira Knightley) is wrangling advent calendars, her kids’ nativity play costumes and hosting festive drinks parties… as well as hunting down her enemies with a secret arsenal of weapons and undercover agent skills. That’s the pitch for Netflix six-parter Black Doves, a London-set spy thriller that pairs Knightley up with Ben Whishaw as a charming, heart-broken assassin.
Created by Joe Barton (The Lazarus Project, Half Bad: The Bastard Son and the Devil Himself, Giri/Haji), and – as announced at this year’s Edinburgh Television Festival – already commissioned for a second season, Black Doves looks set to be big this Christmas. Read our review here, and meet the characters and cast below.
Keira Knightley as Helen Webb
Pride and Prejudice, Anna Karenina, Atonement, Love Actually, the Pirates of the Caribbean film franchise, Bend it Like Beckham… British star Keira Knightley needs no introduction. In Black Doves, she plays Helen Webb (real name: Daisy Bradshaw), a risktaker who fled the UK for a decade following a family tragedy and who, on her return, signed up with the Black Doves – a mercenary spy agency that infiltrates the corridors of power and sells their secrets to the highest bidder. Helen is a mother of twins and wife to Wallace Webb, the UK government minister for defence.
Ben Whishaw as Sam Young
Q from the Bond films clocks some field time in Black Doves, as Ben Whishaw’s character Sam gets very much into the action. He’s a trigger man who fled the UK after a job went wrong, but who is now back in London to protect his old pal Helen. As well as Bond, his stage work, and of course providing the voice of Paddington Bear across three films, Whishaw was recently celebrated for roles in A Very English Scandal, This Is Going to Hurt, The Personal History of David Copperfield and more.
Sarah Lancashire as Mrs Reed
The star of Happy Valley, Julia, Last Tango in Halifax and Everybody’s Talking About Jamie, Sarah Lancashire plays the mysterious Mrs Reed in Black Doves. She’s the founder of the titular organisation and the person who recruited Helen and Sam, but is she somebody they can trust?
Andrew Buchan as Wallace Webb
Fans of The Crown and Broadchurch fans will have no trouble placing actor Andrew Buchan, who plays Secretary of State for Defence Wallace Webb in Black Doves. Buchan is also a screenwriter and his debut TV series Passenger aired earlier this year on ITV. Webb is married to Helen (Knightley) and totally unaware of her undercover identity or the secrets she leaks about his government. Or is he?
Gabrielle Creevy as Eleanor & Ella Lily Hyland as Williams
Assassin Eleanor is played by In My Skin lead Gabrielle Creevy, who’s also known for roles in Operation Mincemeat and Welsh crime drama The Pact. She’s joined by Ella Lily Hyland as fellow psychopathic killer Williams. Hyland made a startling screen debut opposite Aidan Turner in Prime Video’s tennis coach abuse drama Fifteen Love, and will soon be seen in A Thousand Blows, from the creator of Peaky Blinders.
Kathryn Hunter as Lenny Lines
Lenny Lines is a Cockney crime boss who employs the skills of Sam as a trigger man from time to time. She’s played memorably by Kathryn Hunter, who will always be Arabella Figg in the Harry Potter film series to a generation, but who has a very healthy screen and stage career including parts in Poor Things, Megalopolis, and Star Wars show Andor, as well as being a celebrated theatre director.
Omari Douglas as Michael
Michael is Sam’s ex whom he hasn’t seen since a messy break-up seven years before. He’s played by actor Omari Douglas, who was terrific as Roscoe in Russell T Davies’ AIDs drama It’s a Sin, and starred recently opposite James Norton in the acclaimed stage production of A Little Life, as well as in TV series I Hate Suzie and Nolly, and film Rye Lane.
Luther Ford as Hector Newman
Crime family scion Hector is played by Luther Ford, whose major role so far has been that of Prince Harry in Netflix royal family drama The Crown.
Andrew Koji as Jason Davies
Civil servant Jason Davies is played by Andrew Koji, an actor who’s previously appeared in Peaky Blinders (as heroin dealer Brilliant Chang), historical drama Warrior (as Ah Sahm), Brad Pitt-starring movie Bullet Train, Starz fantasy American Gods, and soon, season three of Gangs of London.
Paapa Essiedu as Elmore Fitch
Assassin Elmore Fitch is played by Paapa Essiedu, who led the cast of Black Doves creator Joe Barton’s previous drama, sci-fi The Lazarus Project. Essiedu also appeared in British gangster thriller Gangs of London, the second series of BBC cyber thriller The Capture, and Michaela Coel’s I May Destroy You.
Adeel Akhtar as Prime Minister Richard Eaves
The brilliant Adeel Akhtar (Showtrial, Fool Me Once, Sherwood, Ali & Ava, Les Misérables, Utopia) appears in later episodes of Black Doves as the UK prime minister, aka Wallace Webb’s boss and the man trying to negotiate relations between the Chinese and US governments following the death of an ambassador.
ALSO STARRING
– 1899 and The Crow actor Isabella Wei plays Kai-Ming Chen, the party girl daughter of the Chinese ambassador to London.
– Litvinenko, Chernobyl, The Lazarus Project and stage actor Sam Troughton plays UK government Commissioner Stephen Yarrick.
– Wolf Hall: The Mirror and the Light and Ridley Road‘s Agnes O’Casey plays Dani, a political aide in Wallace Webb’s office.
– Comedian, multi-hyphenate and household name Tracey Ullman plays the mysterious matriarch Alex Clark.
– Save Me, Boiling Point, Moonflower Murders and Living‘s Thomas Coombes plays tabloid journalist Philip Bray.
– Soon-to-be Targaryen prince in A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms Finn Bennett plays Kai-Ming’s American boyfriend Cole Atwood. Bennett’s also recently been in True Detective and Domina.
All episodes of Black Doves season one are streaming now on Netflix.
The post Netflix’s Black Doves Cast: Meet the British Spy Show’s Characters appeared first on Den of Geek.
