After a nail-biting wait of nearly ten years, the acclaimed BBC spy drama The Night Manager makes its explosive return to screens, with Tom Hiddleston reprising his role as the enigmatic Jonathan Pine.
A New Mission for Jonathan Pine
The award-winning series, which originally captivated over 10 million viewers, is back on BBC One tonight (January 1) at 9pm. Based on John le Carré's characters, the new season finds Pine living under the alias Alex Goodwin, working a quiet MI6 surveillance job in London.
His peaceful existence is shattered by a chance sighting of an old associate from the Roper organisation. This propels him into a dangerous new case involving a formidable Colombian businessman named Teddy Dos Santos, played by Diego Calva.
The official synopsis reveals Pine will infiltrate Teddy's arms operation with reluctant help from a businesswoman, plunging him into a deadly plot to train a guerrilla army. "As allegiances splinter, Pine races to expose a conspiracy designed to destabilise a nation," the logline states.
Behind the Scenes: A Global Production Adventure
The production for the highly anticipated second season was a truly international endeavour. Filming took place across multiple diverse locations including the United Kingdom, Spain, Colombia, and France.
Colombia served as a primary backdrop for the new storyline, with key scenes shot at a villa in Girardot, approximately four hours from the capital, Bogotá. The cast and crew undertook extensive preparations to authentically represent the country.
Screenwriter David Farr emphasised the importance of this groundwork at the season two premiere: "Colombia is a very, very complex country, massively misunderstood. Everyone thinks it's just completely dangerous and it's totally not true. But for me, I think it was really important to sort of engage in that seriously. So we did."
The Physical Demands of an Authentic Shoot
Director Georgi Banks-Davies highlighted the scale of the project, describing it as a "massive global adventure." The team shot for 96 to 97 days across six months, a schedule extended by the significant travel involved.
"That meant going to the depths of every place, and that's brutal. It's really, really hard. You just can't fake it, and my god, it was hot!" Banks-Davies added.
Executive producer Stephen Garrett humorously recalled the extreme conditions, noting the crew engaged in "daily shirt wars" as their clothing was destroyed by sweat. "Weirdly, one of the challenges we had in post [production] was communicating the heat that we were actually experiencing," he concluded.
Returning and New Faces
Alongside Tom Hiddleston and newcomer Diego Calva, the new season stars Camila Morrone as Roxana, Indira Varma as Mayra, Paul Chahidi as Basil, and Hayley Squires as Sally.
Fans will be delighted to see Olivia Colman return as intelligence operative Angela Burr. They are joined by other returning cast members including Alistair Petrie as Sandy Langbourne, Douglas Hodge as Rex Mayhew, Michael Nardone as Frisky, and Noah Jupe as Daniel Roper.
The Night Manager season 2 premieres on BBC One and BBC iPlayer from 9pm on Thursday, January 1.
