Gary Oldman reveals the future of Slow Horses after finishing filming series six

GARY Oldman has lifted the lid on what's next for hit spy drama Slow Horses - after wrapping filming on series six.
The Oscar-winning actor, 67, who plays grumpy MI5 agent Jackson Lamb, teased fans with an exciting update about the future of the Apple TV+ show, sparking hopes that more chaotic missions could be on the way.
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Slow Horses has become a massive hit since it first hit screens in 2022
Credit: Apple TV+
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Fans are thrilled that season 7 is in the works
Credit: Alamy
In an interview with
The London-born film star said the series is "the wonderful gift that keeps on giving."
"I just adore the hell out of it, and the people. It is just such a wonderful thing really to be part of."
Slow Horses, based on the Slough House book series by British writer Mick Herron, has become a massive hit since it first hit screens in 2022, quickly winning fans over with its sharp wit, dark humour and thrilling spy drama.
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more on slow horses
The series follows a group of MI5 rejects, led by the irascible Jackson Lamb, who are stuck in the 'slow horses' department - tasked with boring, dead-end jobs but constantly finding themselves embroiled in high-stakes espionage.
Alongside Gary, the show stars a stellar cast including
The clever writing and gripping storytelling have bagged the show multiple nominations and awards, including a BAFTA for Outstanding Drama Series.
With series six now wrapped, fans are eager to see what fresh twists and turns await the slow horses as they continue to navigate the dangerous and unpredictable world of espionage.
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Most read in Drama
The synopsis for season six reads: "The Slow Horses on the run as Diana Taverner embroils them all in a fatally high-stakes game of retaliation and revenge"
The season
will star
and
Doctor Who
's
, as he was spotted filming with Gary in January.
Brit stars win big at the Emmys as Baby Reindeer, The Crown and Slow Horses stars land awards
Fans are thrilled that another season is in the works.
Reacting to the news on X (formerly Twitter) one fan said: "Best show on Apple TV+. Keep 'em coming!"
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Another added: "This is how a hit series should be done."
A third penned: "This is how you produce a TV series."
Gary has also been given a knighthood in the King's Birthday Honours for services to drama.
He commented: 'To be included in the long lineage of extraordinary actors, artists, and others who hold this title fills me with indescribable humility and pride.
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"It is emotional, humbling and flattering all at the same time to be recognised amongst them.'
Gary is known for his versatile acting style having portrayed a range of figures, from former prime minister Sir Winston Churchill to Sex Pistols member
He kicked off his career on the stage, performing at York Theatre Royal - a place he recently returned to for Samuel Beckett's Krapp's Last Tape.
Despite being knocked back by drama giant RADA, he landed a spot at Rose Bruford College and graduated in 1979.
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He then joined the Royal Shakespeare Company, starring in shows like Abel And Cain at London's Almeida Theatre in 1985.
His big break on screen came with films like Remembrance (1982) and Sid And Nancy (1986), where he played the infamous punk rocker.
In the early 1990s, he took on the role of Lee Harvey Oswald - the man accused of assassinating JFK - in 1991's JFK.
He then starred as the legendary vampire in Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992).
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Other standout parts include playing Ludwig van Beethoven in Immortal Beloved (1994) and the sinister Jean-Baptiste Emanuel Zorg in sci-fi hit The Fifth Element (1997).
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Gary was given a knighthood in the King's Birthday Honours for services to drama
Credit: Getty

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Irish Times

2 hours ago

• Irish Times

Why there is more to soccer jerseys today than mere colours, fabrics and tribalism

Joey D'Urso is showing me football jerseys, lifting them up to the screen from his sunny London apartment. Among them are Venezia, Aston Villa and Schalke. To the uninitiated, his haul might seem excessive. Yet, these shirts have been but a fraction of those D'Urso has collated over the past five years. D'Urso is senior data journalist at The Times of London, but he previously worked as a political correspondent for the BBC and an investigations writer for The Athletic. He regularly worked on stories about how Asian gambling companies came to dominate the Premier League , Saudi Arabia's growing influence on sport in general, and the nature of how jersey sponsors are chosen to represent more than modified trims, polyester collars and the colours that will go on to trace a young person's life. That led to him writing More than a Shirt: How Football Shirts Explain Global Politics, Money and Power, a new investigative book set on tracing the lines between the seemingly innocuous colour combinations and a nation's fiscal struggles, social values and political ideologies as geopolitical issues seep into every aspect of the beautiful game. Partly, the task was personal. 'It's such a cliche,' D'Urso says, 'But it's so much more than football [to me]. It's like the North Star in my life. And I think that's true for so many people. Like, my family have all moved houses, relatives have died, all those sorts of things ... but I will always have one physical place that will be the same as when I went for the first time when I was four. And that's my community.' READ MORE For most of football's history, the idea of a non-partisan recognition would have been beyond belief. From its earliest days, the game was a tribal affair, defined by who is in and, more importantly, who is out. In the modern era, D'Urso argues, the cultural currency of jerseys has given credence to a universality, allowing us, in no small way, to think about one singular idea in a world divided. 'Culture is entirely fragmented at the minute,' he says. 'If you see, say, a great TV programme, there are so many streaming platforms now that chances are your friend isn't subscribed to the same thing. Same with music, art ... [but] football runs counter to that.' Joey D'Urso: 'I wasn't expecting to see a football shirt with a Pablo Escobar protege on the back' Yet, with this, the possibility for infiltration runs deep. With 3.5 billion fans worldwide and a vintage jerseys market booming, the ability to connect millions of fans with a positive idea of totalitarianism or climate change has never been easier. 'This Schalke jersey has Gazprom across the front, which is a Russian gas company, and it kind of tells the story of how Russia , essentially, bought off Germany through cheap gas,' D'Urso says. 'That manifested itself in Germany basically being soft on Russia compared to other European countries. Then, when Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, this all imploded spectacularly. Lionel Messi, right. of Barcelona celebrates with Cesc Fabregas after scoring against AC Milan in the Champions League in 2012. Photograph: Manuel Queimadelos Alonso/Getty 'In Germany today, there are people with this shirt with a blue sticker over it, because they're embarrassed to be wearing something that's deeply linked to the invasion of Ukraine.' In Medellín, Colombia, the methods were more subtle. 'An old kit from Envigado FC features a little silhouette of a man on the back,' D'Urso says with a smile. 'That man was a drug warlord whose son, the owner of the club, ordered him to be on it to honour his father. The club was later sanctioned by the American government for big-time organised crime, resulting in the club not being allowed to have any sponsors for years. And that club is where James Rodriguez, top scorer at 2014 World Cup, got his start. But yeah ... I wasn't expecting to see a football shirt with a Pablo Escobar protege on the back.' Even clubs that seemed untouchable weren't immune to political agendas. 'Barcelona at one stage didn't have a sponsor,' he says. 'And then suddenly they had Unicef, and they actually paid Unicef . And this was worn by the best football team of all time: Messi, Iniesta, Guardiola. In his book, D'Urso urges readers to look at the examples he shares to change the way we might see the world 'But then, when Qatar was awarded the World Cup in 2010, Barcelona suddenly had Qatar Foundation and Qatar Airways on their shirt. In that way, sponsors in particular and shirts in general, kind of have the ability to warn you of the future. From lofty ideals to selling out to a Middle Eastern oil state.' These globalising impulses have undoubtedly shaped all sport, not just soccer. However, what brings it closer to home for Irish fans is the Borders chapter, framed around Rangers FC and Club Deportivo Palestino. 'Football is often the embodiment of borders,' D'Urso says. 'And, weirdly, from what I understand, it's that the better the politics become [of a place], the more toxic the football is. Club Deportivo Palestino, in Santiago, has a huge Palestinian diaspora, and they recently had green and white in their kit because they have a kind of link with the fan base of Celtic . It's people expressing their identity. And, to me, it's better that people do that through football than through like, violence in the streets.' Inevitably, kits will continue to fascinate for some time – perhaps as the single unifying act of an unstable sport in an unstable world. As a tribalist among the like-minded, D'Urso urges 3.5 billion of his closest friends to take the 22 examples he shares in the book to change the way one might see the world. 'Every shirt tells a different story,' he says, with a smile. 'With this book, I'd like to give people the tools to find out those stories for themselves.' More than a Shirt: How Football Shirts Explain Global Politics, Money and Power by Joey D'Urso is published by Seven Dials and is available in bookshops

Irish Times

3 hours ago

• Irish Times

Hot Milk: A heated affair, an overbearing Fiona Shaw and some shameful Irish sexuality

Rebecca Lenkiewicz is renowned for her compelling, deep-dive portrayals of marginalised women and her commitment to social justice. Her play The Invisible, from 2015, follows a solicitor struggling to help vulnerable clients – immigrants, the poor and victims of domestic abuse – against a backdrop of austerity-driven cuts to legal aid. Shoreditch Madonna, from a decade earlier, chronicles gentrification and predatory gender and power imbalances in east London . Jane Wenham: The Witch of Walkern, inspired by one of the last women in England to be convicted of witchcraft, excavates patriarchal power structures and the fear of female autonomy. [ Witchipedia: Ireland's most famous witches Opens in new window ] 'I am very interested in outsiders,' Lenkiewicz says. 'I suppose I feel like I'm an outsider, although I lead a pretty settled life. I do feel like I'm looking in from somewhere. It's not a problem. I enjoy it. And I've always relished either re-creating women who have been forgotten or have been silenced. Or investigating women who are really complex.' READ MORE Having written for and alongside such forces as Steve McQueen , for the Small Axe film sequence, and Damien Chazelle , for the TV series The Eddy, the British playwright and screenwriter makes her feature directorial debut with Hot Milk, which she adapted from the novel by Deborah Levy . The story follows Sofia Papastergiadis (played with heat and flintiness by Emma Mackey ), a twenty-something anthropology graduate who accompanies her mother, Rose ( Fiona Shaw ), to Almería in Spain, seeking treatment for Rose's mysterious paralysis. The clinic, run by the enigmatic Dr Gómez (Vincent Perez), offers unconventional therapies that blur the lines between medical practice and psychological confrontation. 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We didn't need any help with the sun. On some days we weren't allowed to work; it was illegal because it was too hot.' Since Hot Milk premiered at Berlin International Film Festival in February, Shaw's performance has attracted huge praise. Slight spoiler alert: her cantankerous character's paralysis is ultimately rooted in the darker aspects of Ireland's theocratic past. 'The Irish thread in the film is not in the book,' the director says. 'It was simply because of Fiona Shaw's casting. What could we use in terms of trauma? And also the whole feeling of women and shame, that our sexuality should carry some shame, carried into the themes of the story.' [ Fiona Shaw on Ireland: 'It is one of the most successful countries in the world. It wasn't when I left it' Opens in new window ] It's not the first time that Lenkiewicz has expressed an interest in Ireland. Her play The Night Season, set in Sligo, premiered at the British National Theatre, in London, in 2004. 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It's about creating an environment where actors feel safe, so that they can be as dangerous or bold as they want to be. 'I suppose, because I have experience of the acting process myself, I can recognise if someone feels scared or stuck. But none of my cast did seem to get scared or stuck. They were all just flying even before the camera started rolling.' Lenkiewicz began her writing career in the early 2000s. Her debut play, Soho: A Tale of Table Dancers, inspired by her own brief time as a table dancer, won a Fringe First award at Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 2000. Her Naked Skin, from 2008, about suffragettes in the early 20th century, became the first original play by a living woman writer to be produced on the Olivier stage, in the largest of the three auditoriums at the National Theatre. 'I'm very proud of it, and I had a great time doing it,' Lenkiewicz says. 'But the National waved it like a flag. And I thought, That is something you'd want to put under a carpet: for 40 years there hasn't been a female writer on the Olivier stage with an original play; that's absolutely despicable. 'Thankfully, things have shifted a lot in the theatre. But there's still redressing to be done, in theatre and film, in terms of female directors and writers.' As a screenwriter, Lenkiewicz wrote the 2013 film Ida with Pawl Pawlikowski, which won the Oscar for best foreign language film. She also worked with Sebastián Lelio on Disobedience, from 2017, and with Wash Westmoreland on Colette, from the following year, contributing sharp dialogue and emotional depth. Those collaborations make for quite the film school. 'Ida was my first film. I remember Pawel saying, 'Keep it simple.' I've remembered that ever since. I've had brilliant input from the directors I have worked with. But I think in the end you're on your own with everything you have absorbed, from your family upbringing to conversations you've had.' Hot Milk is in cinemas from Friday, July 4th

The Journal

6 hours ago

• The Journal

Quiz: How well do you know the support acts of Slane's biggest concerts?

LORD HENRY MOUNT Charles, best known for staging huge concerts at his home at Slane Castle in Meath , died on Wednesday aged 74. The driving force behind turning the Meath estate into the location that played host to acts such as U2, Queen, David Bowie and the Rolling Stones died following a long battle with cancer. Advertisement Slane has become a byword for iconic Irish concerts over the past four decades thanks to Mount Charles – and as such, many of the concerts have boasted some very well-known and talented support acts. So, we wanted to ask you – how well do you know these support acts of Slane Castle's biggest concerts? The first Slane Castle concert was held in 1981, headlined by Thin Lizzy. What other Irish band famously featured as a support act? Alamy Stock Photo The Undertones U2 The Boomtown Rats The Waterboys A 1982 Rolling Stones concert at Slane featured three support acts - including the J. Geils Band and the Chieftains. What was the name of the other support band? Alamy Stock Photo George Thorogood and the Destroyers Jack Cannon and the Reckoners Ricky Wooledge and the Outlaws Danny Brugos and the Wildfires Who was the main support for Queen's 80,000 sellout performance at Slane? Alamy Stock Photo Eric Clapton Mark Knopfler Chris de Burgh Chris Rea Neil Young's 1993 concert at Slane Castle boasted an all-star support line-up. Which of these bands was NOT a support act? Alamy Stock Photo Pearl Jam Van Morrison Saw Doctors The Cranberries Sharon Shannon and Spearhead joined REM for their Slane gig in 1993. What burgeoning British band also featured as a support act? Alamy Stock Photo Oasis Blur Radiohead The Stone Roses The Verve played the popular Meath location in 1998. Which of their support acts would go on to headline Slane the following year? Alamy Stock Photo Manic Street Preachers Finley Quaye Robbie Williams James U2 headlined the iconic venue twice in the space of a week in 2001. Who was their support act for the first gig? Alamy Stock Photo The White Stripes Red Hot Chili Peppers The Strokes Backstreet Boys ... and who was the support for their second gig? Faithless Groove Armada Air Moby Which singer did not feature any support acts at their 2005 concert? Rolling News Madonna Kylie Minogue Britney Spears Mariah Carey In 2011, Kings of Leon graced the Slane stage. Which previous headliner returned to feature as a support act for them? Alamy Stock Photo U2 Thin Lizzy Red Hot Chilli Peppers Stereophonics Bon Jovi played there in June 2013. Which of these food-themed bands played support? Alamy Stock Photo Smashing Pumpkins The Cranberries Ham Sandwich Bowling for Soup Metallica played Slane in 2019 - who was their main support act? Alamy Stock Photo Mastodon Ghost Rammstein Volbeat The most recent concert to grace the historic location was headlined by British pop icon Harry Styles. Which Irish DJ featured among the support acts? Alamy Stock Photo Annie Mac Shane Codd Krystal Klear ELLLL Answer all the questions to see your result! Rolling News You scored out of ! Slane veteran You've been to your fair share of gigs Share your result: Share Tweet Rolling News You scored out of ! You know your stuff You've definitely been to Slane Castle before Share your result: Share Tweet Rolling News You scored out of ! A decent attempt Time to get to more gigs! Share your result: Share Tweet Rolling News You scored out of ! Concert newbie You've heard of Slane, right? Share your result: Share Tweet Rolling News You scored out of ! You got nothing Concerts aren't for everyone Share your result: Share Tweet Readers like you are keeping these stories free for everyone... A mix of advertising and supporting contributions helps keep paywalls away from valuable information like this article. Over 5,000 readers like you have already stepped up and support us with a monthly payment or a once-off donation. Learn More Support The Journal