Hatton Garden is the Timothy Spall drama flying up the Netflix charts
Timothy Spall just won a well-deserved Bafta for The Sixth Commandment, but one of his biggest ITV dramas is winning new fans.
Timothy Spall has one of the most decorated careers of any British actor. For decades now, he has been a reliable, quality presence in dozens of TV series and an eclectic range of movies, from low-budget dramas all the way to Harry Potter.
He earned some richly deserved recognition at the Bafta TV Awards on Sunday, scooping the Best Actor prize for true crime drama The Sixth Commandment. But another of his drama series is soaring up the Netflix charts right now: the 2019 ITV miniseries Hatton Garden. The five-year-old show is currently in the chart mix along with new hits like Baby Reindeer and Bodkin.
The series tells the true story of the infamous Hatton Garden heist. In 2015, six elderly men — all of whom had a background as thieves — accessed an underground safe deposit facility in the heart of London's jewellery quarter. They stole goods with a value of around ￡14m.
Read more: Bafta winner Timothy Spall: It was privilege to tell Sixth Commandment story (PA Media)
Naturally, this sort of story is fertile ground for drama and there have been numerous adaptations for both the big and small screens. For example, Michael Caine starred in a 2018 movie version of the story called King of Thieves.
The 2019 ITV version, though, used some of our brightest TV talent to bring the story to life with serious calibre on both sides of the camera. Director Paul Whittington has an enormous array of credits, including recent series This Town, as well as hard-hitting dramas like Little Boy Blue and White House Farm. Co-writer Jeff Pope, meanwhile, has an Oscar nomination for his work on Philomena.
Spall plays the role of Terry Perkins, while Kenneth Cranham embodies the gang's ringleader Brian Reader. David Hayman, Alex Norton and Geoff Bell also stepped in as members of the experienced criminal group who pulled off the heist.
Watch: Trailer for the ITV series Hatton Garden
The reviews for the show at the time were positive. The Guardian praised the "attention to detail" in the writing and the authentic portrayal of ageing, while The Independent dubbed its storytelling "entertaining and highly addictive".
Read more: Timothy Spall praised for ‘real’ speech after shock Bafta TV Awards 2024 win over Brian Cox (The Independent)
Of course, this is essential viewing for any fan of Spall's work. He's capable of being lovable and charming, but he's at his best when he's playing rodent-like scumbags — including the actual rat he portrayed in the Harry Potter movies.
The tension between Terry and Brian crackles throughout the drama, during the actual robbery and in the fractious aftermath of the crime. It's a delight to see Spall in full flow, effortlessly elevating the work around him as always.
In a world saturated with true crime storytelling, it can be hard to work out what to watch. We're still recovering from Baby Reindeer after all. Netflix has a near-bottomless catalogue of this sort of material, but Hatton Garden has risen to the top in recent days, attracting thousands of new viewers.
Read more: How to watch true crime series The Jinx Part Two in the UK (Yahoo Entertainment)
It goes without saying that you absolutely have to watch Spall's Bafta-winning work in The Sixth Commandment if you haven't already experienced that show. But it's no surprise that there's a whole new audience discovering Hatton Garden on Netflix. That's what streaming is all about.
Hatton Garden is available to watch now on Netflix and ITVX.
