Keira Knightley finds wit and festive tension in spy series ‘Black Doves’

LONDON: British actress Keira Knightley says her new series “Black Doves” stands out for its tongue in cheek take on the world of espionage.

Knightley, who also executive produced the show, plays Helen Webb, an undercover spy working for the secretive “Black Doves” intelligence organisation.

A loving mother of two, Helen has been married to a prominent British politician for years, pilfering and passing on his classified government data.

When her lover, a mysterious civil servant, is assassinated, Helen gets tangled in a web of conspiracies and risks her cover being blown.

“I was looking for a series to do, read the pilot and thought it was exactly what I was looking for. It’s a thriller, but it’s got this kind of amazing wit. It’s faintly ridiculous but in the most delicious kind of way,” Knightley said at the series’ premiere in London on Tuesday.

Ben Whishaw plays Helen’s sidekick Sam, a triggerman distracted by his past and complicated love life.

“It’s so unlikely-slash-absurd because I kill a whole small army of assassins by myself. All of them are sort of twice the size of me,” Whishaw said. “This show has a twinkle in its eye that means that it knows it’s being a bit ridiculous, but it’s going to go there anyway.”

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Knightley, 39, said she identified with her character’s capacity to compartmentalise the different parts of her personality.

“I’m a parent of two young girls and I’ve definitely got a child-friendly face when I’m with them. And then there’s other parts of my personality and they still exist, they just don’t necessarily get the air that they used to,” she said.

The six-part series was created and written by Joe Barton, whose previous credits include “Giri/Haji” and “The Lazarus Project”.

Barton said he wrote “Black Doves”, which is set in London in the lead up to Christmas, “on a bit of a whim” between Boxing Day and New Year two years ago.

“I felt like the setting sort of works quite interestingly against the spy stuff, it’s all the jolly and the tinsel, and it’s quite a dark time of year in a way, where everyone’s quite emotionally fraught. So it kind of adds to the tension,” he said.

“Black Doves” starts streaming on Netflix on Dec. 5.