Flight risk

Richard Armitage and Jing Lusi are caught up in a dark conspiracy aboard a plane bound for Beijing

- SEAN MARLAND

Richard Armitage and Jing Lusi sit in the middle row of a passenger plane as a film crew hurries past, resetting for another take…

TV&Satellite Week has been invited to White Waltham Airfield in Berkshire to watch the filming of ITV1’s Red Eye, a tense and claustrophobic six-part conspiracy thriller.

‘It’s been a surreal experience because the drama is set on a night-time flight, so it’s a very dark set,’ says Armitage as we chat to him during a break in filming. ‘You lose track of time a bit, which feels like the perfect environment for this kind of story. But it’s strange when you walk outside, and it’s bright sunshine.’

Set on a flight between London and Beijing, the series sees the Robin Hood star playing British surgeon Dr Matthew Nolan, who finds himself battling to survive when he’s caught up in a sinister political conspiracy.

At the start of this week’s first episode, we see a drunk and disoriented Matthew racing through the streets of Beijing before crashing his car. The wounded surgeon immediately boards a flight home to the UK, only to be arrested on arrival at Heathrow, accused of murder and extradited back to Beijing.