{"id":270478,"date":"2026-01-29T17:20:11","date_gmt":"2026-01-29T17:20:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/270478\/"},"modified":"2026-01-29T17:20:11","modified_gmt":"2026-01-29T17:20:11","slug":"shaun-evans-reveals-how-betrayal-most-differs-from-other-spy-thrillers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/270478\/","title":{"rendered":"Shaun Evans reveals how Betrayal most differs from other spy thrillers"},"content":{"rendered":"

Endeavour star Shaun Evans is back on ITV, this time starring in four-part spy thriller Betrayal<\/a>, in which he plays a mid-career MI5 officer.<\/p>\n

The series follows Evans’s character John, as he finds himself under investigation, while also struggling with problems in his personal life, and becoming increasingly convinced that a hardline faction of the Iranian regime are planning an attack.<\/p>\n

When speaking with RadioTimes.com<\/a> exclusively about the series, Evans noted that when adding to a genre as well established as the spy thriller, you have to bring “a fresh, new voice” to it.<\/p>\n

Evans said that the way in for him and the team behind the programme was to make John an “everyman figure”, and to look at “the daily life, the reality of what it’s actually like to work for the security services”.<\/p>\n

“The idea that you could be dealing with international terrorism at work and coming home and having to bath the kids or put a wash on, for me, seemed very fertile territory if we really wanted to dig into the idea of a midlife crisis,” Evans said.<\/p>\n

\"Shaun<\/p>\n

Shaun Evans as John Hughes and Zahra Ahmadi as Mehreen Askari-Evans in Betrayal.\u00a0Mammoth Screen for ITV<\/p>\n

He continued: “These are just everyday people doing an extraordinary job. And that is it really – we have a tendency to glamorise and mystify them, but actually\u2026”<\/p>\n

“I think there needs to be an everyday quality to John,” Evans added. “It needs to feel realistic and relatable, but still exciting. And so we tried to incorporate all of those aspects into the show, for it to feel exciting, fresh, current, but also completely real and relatable.”<\/p>\n

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As well as Evans, the series also stars Romola Garai as Claire, John’s wife, and Zahra Ahmadi as Mehreen Askari-Evans, an intelligence operative who is tasked with taking over John\u2019s duties while he is under investigation.<\/p>\n

They are joined in the cast by Gamba Cole (The Outlaws), Omid Djalili (His Dark Materials), Matthew Tennyson (Grantchester<\/a>), Hayley Tamaddon (Unforgotten<\/a>), Anthony Flanagan (House of the Dragon<\/a>), Paddy Rowan (G\u2019wed) and Waj Ali (Out There<\/a>).<\/p>\n

Betrayal will premiere at 9pm on Sunday 8th February on ITV1 and ITVX in 2026.<\/p>\n

Add Betrayal to your watchlist on the Radio Times: What to Watch app<\/a> \u2013 download now for daily TV recommendations, features and more.<\/p>\n

Check out more of our Drama<\/a> coverage or visit our TV Guide<\/a> and Streaming Guide<\/a> to find out what’s on. For more TV recommendations and reviews, listen to The Radio Times Podcast<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Endeavour star Shaun Evans is back on ITV, this time starring in four-part spy thriller Betrayal, in which…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":270479,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[93,61,60,282],"class_list":["post-270478","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-tv"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/270478","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=270478"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/270478\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/270479"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=270478"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=270478"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=270478"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}