When The Night Manager returns on New Year’s Day it will have been ten years since Tom Hiddleston seduced audiences as Jonathan Pine, the hotel manager turned spy in the critically acclaimed adaptation of John le Carré’s 1993 novel.
Amazon has teamed up with the BBC for the new series, which means a higher budget than the original’s £20 million and a wider international audience when it lands on Prime Video on January 11. The second series expands beyond the source material with a new story, written by the series creator David Farr.
“Revisiting the story of Pine means going beyond the events of John le Carré’s original work. That is a decision we have not taken lightly, but his compelling characters and the vision David has for their next chapter were irresistible,” the writer’s sons Simon and Stephen Cornwell have said.
Read on for a guide to the new series, as well as a recap of the first for those of us who have forgotten.
Who’s in the new series of The Night Manager?
Having performed what many saw as a de facto Bond audition in the first series (now, at 44, the actor is unlikely to be chosen as the next 007), Hiddleston returns as Pine, the suavely charming former British soldier who fought in Iraq and was working as a night manager in a posh Cairo hotel as a form of self-exile at the start of series one. In the second series he is living under the alias Alex Goodwin, a low-level MI6 officer in charge of a surveillance unit in London who is called to action when he happens to see a mercenary he knows worked for Richard Roper — Hugh Laurie’s arms dealer in series one.
Olivia Colman reprises her role as Angela Burr
BBC
Olivia Colman returns as Angela Burr, the MI6 intelligence officer who worked with Pine in the last series, while the 20-year-old north London actor Noah Jupe reprises his role as Roper’s son Danny, and Alastair Petrie, so memorable as the awful head teacher in Sex Education, is back as Roper’s financial director Sandy Longbourne.
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Laurie is unlikely to reappear since Roper was abducted by Syrian creditors at the end of the first series. Instead there is a new dodgy money-mover, a Colombian businessman called Teddy Dos Santos, played by Diego Calva. Camila Morrone, the star of Daisy Jones and the Six (and Leonardo DiCaprio’s former girlfriend of five years), takes on the role of Roxana Bolaños, a businesswoman who helps Pine to penetrate Dos Santos’s arms empire. “Cami Morrone’s Roxy is a creature of her own destiny,” the lead executive producer Stephen Garrett told Vanity Fair, promising she would be a more complex character than Elizabeth Debicki’s Jed in series one, who was “to some extent the wife of our worst man in the world [Roper] and needed to be liberated by another man in Tom Hiddleston”.
Also new to the cast is Indira Varma from Doctor Who.
Leonardo DiCaprio’s former girlfriend Camila Morrone is one of the new additions to the cast
BBC
Who’s making it?
Farr is very much the engine behind the new series — so much so that he told Vanity Fair the way forward came to him in a dream during lockdown the night before le Carré (real name David Cornwell) died.
John le Carré’s sons Simon and Stephen Cornwell
DAVE BENETT/GETTY IMAGES FOR APPLE TV+
Joining him at the helm is Ink Factory, the production company run by le Carré’s sons Simon and Stephen, who produce all adaptations of their father’s intellectual property. Simon is confident about their vision. “When a lot of writers pass, their estates contain all kinds of strict rules. Thou shalt not change this, or that. And my dad’s letter said: ‘You know what I stand for, respect what I stand for, but only you can figure out where to go next.’ And that is sort of the invitation,” he said.
Georgi Banks-Davies (I Hate Suzie) takes over as director from Susanne Bier. “Still feels like a DREAM directing this. Get ready for the ride,” she posted on Instagram. And Laurie may not be back on screen, but he is on board as an executive producer.
What happened in series one of The Night Manager?
The cast of series one, from left: Hugh Laurie, Tom Hiddleston, Elizabeth Debicki, Olivia Colman, Tom Hollander
MITCH JENKINS
Pine is working at a swanky hotel in Egypt and sleeping with Sophie (real name Samira) — the mistress of a Cairo gangster, Freddie Hamid. She is murdered after giving Pine a list of the weapons Hamid stocks and Pine sets out on an undercover revenge mission against Roper, who is selling Hamid weapons. MI6 then manufactures a fake kidnapping of Roper’s girlfriend Jed and son Danny so that Pine can save them, earning Roper’s trust. (He subsequently has an affair with Jed.) He and Pine then go to Syria, where Pine is told to showcase the weapons to potential buyers. There he beats Roper’s henchman Corky (Tom Hollander) to death after Corky threatens to reveal to Roper that Pine is a spy. Roper then discovers that Pine is a spy after torturing Jed. Pine blows up the weapons promised in a big sale and Roper is abducted by his Syrian creditors.
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How was the first series received?
The final episode averaged 6.6 million viewers, winning the 2016 Easter weekend TV battle. It was nominated for seven Baftas and won three, and was recognised in America with an Emmy and three Golden Globes.
Where is the new series of The Night Manager filmed?
The drama is predominantly set in Colombia. The annual flower festival in Medellin and its main square, Plaza Botero, feature heavily. So do a villa in Girardot, three hours’ drive southwest of the capital, Bogota, and Cartagena, although some of these scenes were shot in Barcelona. Others were filmed in France and Tenerife — specifically in a guachinche (a rustic restaurant) called Como en Casa: expect bookings to go through the roof, just as they did for Ca’s Patro March on Mallorca after the kidnapping scene in series one.
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Everyone will be talking about…
Camila Morrone, who looks set to become a global star. And what happens to Pine next — a third series has been commissioned.
The Night Manager is on BBC1 from Jan 1 and Prime Video from Jan 11