A rootless genius steals an enigmatic diary containing the activation code for a sentient quantum computer from a charming but ruthless tech investor.

Perhaps it’s just the post-Christmas blues, but catching up with Neil Cross’s epic eight part quantum thriller, The Iris Affair, made me feel rather sad. An awful lot of effort had gone into it. The cast and crew were shipped all across Italy from Rome to Florence to Sardinia, and it looked great. It boasts a stellar cast including Niamh Algar as the titular Iris; Tom Hollander as the investor Cameron Beck; Sacha Dhawan as a conspiracy YouTuber; Kristofer Hivju as the computer’s deranged inventor; and many more besides.

At its McGuffiny core is a glowing, towering quantum computer called Charlie Big Potatoes, which contains the key to total knowledge (not necessarily a good thing) if only Cameron Beck (Hollander) can find the activation code, which inventor, Jensen Lind (Hivju) is refusing to divulge, fearing the destruction of the world as we know it. Meanwhile Iris has absconded with Lind’s diary which supposedly holds the key to the code, just as Beck’s financiers, in the form of Harry Lloyd as the sinister Hugo Pym, are threatening to cut bits off various people if they don’t get a return on their investment very soon. Somewhere in the mix are a group of corrupt Italian police although I never quite worked out what that plot strand was about, but they do a lot of chasing and shooting, so that livens things up a good deal.

‘What’s there to be sad about?’ I hear you ask, ‘it sounds great!’ Well… there was eight hours of this show, and to be brutally honest, the first six hours could have been totally dispensed with had someone in Cameron Beck’s secret Bond Villain lair invested in a photocopier. As for the last two episodes, personally I would have just unplugged the bloody thing. Problem solved. All that effort for the sake of a bit of basic office kit and a circuit breaker.

But even if we generously overlook these itsy bitsy plot holes, I found myself wondering whether I was disappearing down alternate multiverses myself when a whole plot strand about collecting DNA went absolutely nowhere. There was also something about aliens and a void in a distant corner of the cosmos, and a girl with a terminal disease, none of which were resolved. Perhaps in another universe it all made sense.

However – and it’s a big big big galactic ‘however’ – I watched the whole thing because Tom Hollander’s Cameron Beck is a truly wondrous creation. Hollander is one of our most talented actors at the best of times, but here he lights up every frame he inhabits. Is Beck a villain or a misguided hero? Is he a sociopath or a man of more heart than any of us? Is he a world weary adult or a child? Is he a tragedian or a comedian?

Verdict: The Iris Affair is mostly nonsensical and irritatingly repetitive – with wiffle waffle quantum ideas way above its station – but Mr H makes it a wonderful watch, as long as you can keep yourself busy during the bits when he isn’t on screen.

Series rating: 5/10 Tom Hollander rating 10/10

Martin Jameson

www.ninjamarmoset.com