In the series, Slow Horses, Gary Oldman plays the slobbingly burnt out head of Slao House,

a rundown, disregarded division of MI5 that serves as a dumping ground for British

spies who've made huge mistakes.

At Slao House, they wait out the rest of their careers, performing menial, intelligence

adjacent grunt work, or that's the idea.

Anyway, I'm Glenn Weldon and today we're talking about Slow Horses on Pop Culture Happy

Hour from NPR.

Joining me today is NPR, senior editor Barry Hardiman, high friend.

Hey there, how you doing?

Yeah, it's been entirely too long.

I am eager to talk about this show.

Slow Horses is based on a series of spy novels by Mick Herron and stars Gary Oldman as

the arrestable verbally abusive...

It's definitely in the Armando Ynuchi realm of abusive.

Yeah, and one of the writers and producers on this series is Will Smith, who worked with

Armando Ynuchi on VEEP and on the thick of his...

Yeah, there's some humor.

It's got that vibe and it's clearly that Slao House does not have an HR department.

Anyway, he plays Jackson Lamb, who runs a team of misfits and screw-ups.

They're the laughing stock of the British intelligence community, which is led in part

by Diana Tabaner, played by the Great and Good.

Kristen Scott Thomas, Jack Loden, plays River Cartwright, the latest addition to Lamb's

...