Review: Red Joan

It’s May 2000, and the UK police are at the door of elderly widow Joan Stanley (Judi Dench). It seems her past has finally caught up to her – but what exactly did she do? Seriously, she's a kindly old granny played (to full doddering effect) by Dame Judi Dench; how could she possibly be a world-class super-spy?

Obviously that's the point. Spies are meant to be inconspicuous - not that anyone seemed to pick up on that in the UK establishment, where for decades obviously dubious types kept washing up in prime positions to pass on secrets to the Soviets largely because they went to the right school. So the question here isn't so much how she did it as why; what inspired her to betray her country?

In flashbacks we see a much younger Joan (Sophie Cookson) off to Cambridge to study science, where she quickly falls under the sway of a glamourous group of socialists, especially Sonya (Tereza Srbova) and her cousin Leo (Tom Hughes). His overtly communist actions make him a figure of suspicion, while her smarts see her recruited to type up reports (and occasionally chip in with ideas) at the UK’s wartime atomic bomb project. It's a very useful combination for Soviet intelligence - especially as most of her friends seem to be part of it.

Despite falling hard for Leo, she equally firmly rejects his proposal that the Soviet Union needs nuclear secrets to keep things balanced between the Allies, until Hiroshima hammers home what’s really at stake. Turns out she's an idealist after all, only her dreams are of world peace (or at least, a balanced world) - not that good excuses will save her if she gets caught

Based on the real-life “granny spy”, this is a fairly straightforward and somewhat mild drama that (aside from a few tense scenes once the UK spy agencies realise there’s a leak) is more about moral dilemmas than actual espionage. The focus is firmly on her and the largely personal betrayals she deals with, so those after double-crosses and shock reveals should look elsewhere. The real drama here is how Joan makes her way in a man’s world; suspicion rarely falls on her because she’s just a woman, and when it does she can always hide her spy gear in a box of tampons and watch the mid-century law flinch and squirm.

- Anthony Morris