TV Review: The Lakers' glory days recalled, Slow Horses is a spy-comeback romp

Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty

Having attended last weekend’s "slapgate" Oscars, where his film Don’t Look Up was nominated for Best Picture, Adam McKay is probably still picking his jaw off the floor. But away from the big screen, the director – his CV also includes Anchorman: The Legend Of Ron Burgundy and The Big Short – has carved out a blockbusting parallel career in TV.

He was a leading force behind chattering-class favourite Succession, serving as executive producer and directing the pilot (and it was his idea to cast Daniel Day-Lewis acolyte Jeremy Strong as tragic chosen son Kendall Roy). He repeats that one-two on Winning Time: The Rise Of The Lakers Dynasty (Sky Atlantic Monday), a zinging retelling of the glory years of the LA Lakers basketball team through the 1980s.

This is breathless, hyper-kinetic TV. John C Reilly – last seen as “International Guest of Honour” at the Dublin St Patrick’s Day Parade – plays Jerry Buss, the Lakers mercurial owner. And Quincy Isaiah oozes charm and vulnerability as a young Magic Johnson.

The tone is that of a fuel-injected comedy, with a one-liner or visual gag squeezed into almost every scene in a manner that some may find exhausting (if there is such a thing as slow TV then this is its spiritual opposite). 

Nonetheless, McKay has some serious things to say too, about the racism directed at Johnson (who is compared unfavourably to his corn-fed, all-American nemesis Larry Bird) and the unchecked sexism of the American workplace of the era, when high-flying female executives were regarded as glorified secretaries.

Winning Time is slick almost to a fault and McKay’s turbo-charged style of film-making won’t be for everyone – there really is no room to breathe. However, 1980s Los Angeles is brought thrillingly to life and McKay tells the story with verve and enthusiasm.

The cast of Slow Horses, left to right: Stephen Waddington, Dustin Demri-Burns, Freddie Fox, Rosalind Eleazar, Gary Oldman, Jack Lowden, Jonathan Pryce, Christopher Chung, Olivia Cooke, Saskia Reeves and Antonio Aakel at the premiere of Slow Horses at Regent Street Cinema, central London.

Gary Oldman may have won an Oscar for portraying a Cosplay Winston Churchill. And yet, arguably his greatest role in the latter half of his career was as John le Carré’s world-weary spook, George Smiley in the 2011 adaptation of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. And now he’s back in the espionage world in Apple TV +’s new series, Slow Horses (Friday), based on the novel by Mick Herron.

As with Oldman’s plunge into the le Carré universe, this is James Bond with all the glamour stripped away. He plays Jackson Lamb, a spy who has been slapped with a license of chill and shipped off to a backwater office at dull Slough House, London. 

In other words, he’s on the scrap-heap. But then everything changes when a Muslim student is kidnapped by fascists. This is a crisis situation – and an opportunity for Lamb to prove himself to his boss (Kristin Scott Thomas).

Apple TV + is on a roll, with Korean drama Pachinko widely lauded as one of the year’s must-watch shows and Coda winning Best Picture at the Oscars. And if Slow Horses isn’t quite as essential, with Oldman in the saddle is proceeds with a satisfying gallop, packing in several twists along the way.