The Worricker Trilogy

Turks & Caicos

by
Bill Nighy

Turks & Caicos is the second of the Johnny Worricker trilogy of TV movies made by Carnival Films (of Downton Abbey fame) for the BBC and boasting the sort of cast that was still rare at small screen level in 2014. Christopher Walken and Winona Ryder are the properly big names, though Dylan Baker, Helena Bonham Carter, Rupert Graves and Ewen Bremner (returning from the first movie) are hardly kitty litter. Ralph Fiennes, though present and correct, is only on screen for a few seconds and so doesn’t really count. For those coming in cold, there is absolutely no need to have watched the first one (Page Eight) to enjoy the second. All … Read more

Page Eight

by
Rachel Weisz and Bill Nighy

From the instant Page Eight starts we know where we are. The camera focuses on Bill Nighy’s face. He lights a cigarette and, as jazz music sulks away on the soundtrack, he strides out into the night. Johnny Worricker (Nighy) is another of Raymond Chandler’s white knights tilting at baddies out on the mean streets and we’re in a noirish thriller set in a world of duplicity. Personally, I’ll watch anything with Nighy in it, his gangling deadpan generally improving everything it’s inserted into. But there are two other “watch anything they’re in” presences in Page Eight. Michael Gambon (not in it nearly long enough), “the Great Gambon” as Ralph Richardson called him, … Read more