Like everyone with an Apple TV+ account, the most pleasurable six hours of my Christmas break were spent in the esteemed company of Gary Oldman’s Jackson Lamb, the dog-eared, moth-eaten protagonist of Slow Horses. His propulsive drinking and smoking habits reminded me of less cautious, happier days. That grubby overcoat satiated an urgent December need to divorce myself from the reductive filters of positivity, tinsel and gloss. The scheduling of the show’s fabulously preposterous climax over the festivities couldn’t have felt any more prudent, turning Lamb into the ghost of Christmas never.
I first saw Oldman playing Sid Vicious in Alex Cox’s Sid and Nancy as an errant 15-year-old with a burgeoning curiosity to look underneath the grubby bonnet of life. He captivated me entirely, his opening run establishing Oldman with perfect film star precision without destabilising any of his natural working-class charm. Next, he introduced me to the mesmerising world of Joe Orton in Prick Up Your Ears, the first and possibly only gay man on screen I ever truly loved.
