Nightsleeper television review: The most exciting thing to ever happen on a train from Glasgow to Motherwell

Joe Cole stars at Joe Roag in new BBC drama Nightsleeper. | BBC/Euston Films/Anne Binckebanck

There’s a long and storied history of films and television programmes set on trains, from the numerous adaptations of Agatha Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express to Korean filmmaker Bong Joon Ho’s class satire masterpiece Snowpiercer, via zombie mayhem actioner Last Train to Busan.

Terrorists on trains are also a well-worn path, most recently in Clint Eastwood’s 2018 true life drama The 15:17 to Paris, but the BBC’s new six part Sunday evening drama Nightsleeper could be the first to take place on British rolling stock. It’s a choice that would seem to add infinite layers of organisation to any potential criminal mastermind - good luck hijacking a Scotrail train after 10pm on a Sunday or negotiating the ‘temporary’ timetable. It’s something the writers are well aware of. “Is the train behaving unusually?”, a character is asked. “It’s moving. Is that unusual these days?” he quips.

Alex Ferns as Arran Moy in Nightsleeper. | BBC/Euston Films/Anne Binckebanck

There’s certainly no lack of movement when it comes to the plot. The action opens in Glasgow’s Central Station (a starring role for the iconic concourse clock) where a suspicious figure is playing a single portentious note on a piano. A bag is snatched as the Glasgow-to-London sleeper service is due to depart and a chase ensues resulting in a whistlestop introduction to the passengers. The train eventually leaves eight minutes late (you’d take that) but it’s soon clear something is awry when the type of wires-and-lights gadget that’s never a good sign is found connected to underfloor wiring. That’s all before the opening credits roll.

The bad news continues when it’s revealed that nobody can talk to the driver, the emergency brakes are out of action, there’s no phone reception (the train WiFi is out too, but that’s par for the course), and there’s an ongoing Britain-wide cyber attack underway. Worse still, the next stop’s Motherwell. There are positives though - there’s a potential hero on board in the form of Joe Cole’s squirrely policeman Joe Roag and, as luck would have it, an oil worker has a satellite phone so he can be patched through to the National Cyber Security Agency in London. We’re still only about 10 minutes into the show’s six hour runtime.

The only thing there’s more of than plot is characters, with half the actors in Scotland having apparently bagged a part. There’s Gavin ‘Boabby the Barman’ Mitchell driving the train, Alex Ferns drinking his way through the buffet car, and James Cosmo playing the role he was born to play - James Cosmo. Jokes aside, the cast are uniformly excellent, led by Cole and Alexandra Roach as cyber crime expert Abby Aysgarth.

James Cosmo playing Fraser Warren and passengers on the Nightsleeper. | BBC/Euston Films/Anne Binckebanck

The rest of the opening episode takes so many sharp turns you worry that it might derail, with an audacious twist at the half way point that few will guess. It just about stays on track though, with sleight of hand and misdirection feeding a growing sense of paranoia where everybody starts to look suspicious (even James Cosmo).

The BBC have chosen to drop all six parts of Nightsleeper on the iPlayer in a oner, which seems a shame when shows like Apple TV’s Slow Horses are showing the wisdom of enforced waits for new episodes. Frankly, with a plot this delightfully exhausting I’m happy to take a week to recharge my batteries before jumping back onboard.