James Walton

More Airplane! than Speed: Nightsleeper reviewed

Plus: it's business as usual for Strictly Come Dancing

Gabriel Howell, Alexandra Roach and Pamela Nomvete in BBC 1’s Nightsleeper. (Credit: BBC/Euston Films/Mark Mainz) 
issue 21 September 2024

Earlier this year, ITV brought us Red Eye, a six-part drama set mainly on an overnight plane from London to Beijing. Displaying a heroic indifference to plausibility, the show was an increasingly deranged mash-up of every thriller convention known to man – while still posing (when it remembered to) as a thoughtful exploration of realpolitik.

By the end, it was all so daft that the biggest influence no longer seemed to be Speed, but Airplane!

Funnily enough, this week’s Nightsleeper was much the same thing – only this time on an overnight train from Glasgow to London.

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