KILLING season

Keira Knightley and Ben Whishaw are dangerous double agents in a Christmas-set spy thriller.

- REBECCA MAHONEY, ALISON SLADE.

Keira Knightley and Ben Whishaw are old friends reunited by their dangerous double lives in a new Christmas-set thriller, which finds Happy Valley's Sarah Lancashire lurking in the shadows as a steely spymaster.

Created by Giri/Haji and The Lazarus Project writer Joe Barton, six-part Netflix drama Black Doves is brimming with action and dry humour. Set in London at Christmas, it follows Helen Webb (Knightley), who is married to a politician husband, Tory Minister of State for Defence Wallace Webb (Andrew Buchan), and is a devoted mother to their young twins, Oliver and Jacqueline.

However, Helen is harbouring dark secrets: not only is she a professional spy, but for 10 years, she's been stealing Government information from her husband for a private espionage organisation called Black Doves.

What's more, she's been having an affair, and when her lover is murdered, Helen's handler, Reed (Lancashire), sends an assassin, Sam Young (Whishaw), to protect her.

PROTECTOR