In late 2011, with Spooks about to hit its tenth anniversary, Kudos made the decision to terminate the show. With a return to the six-episode structure of the opening series, a valedictory season was penned that wouldn’t skimp on dramatic fireworks. Or, as its creative team swiftly decided, a definitive end.
Vincent: We had a big heart-to-heart meeting [before season ten] and all agreed that it should have a proper ending.
Brackley: We knew it would be the last season before we started writing, so we decided to do something serialised focusing on Harry.
Featherstone: I was thrilled when Bharat came back to direct the last two episodes. He, Peter and I were the only ones who there at the beginning.
Nalluri: The tenth season was all Harry. Peter had become the leader of the series.
Vincent: Peter’s got a fantastic gift for comedy. When Harry comes back from his leave, there’s a moment where someone asks him how it was and he says, ’At one particularly dark moment I actually considered gardening.’ Then he does a little James Bond wiggle of his tie knot as he walks away. He’s such a crafty actor, he can move straight from that back into the serious stuff.
Walker: Filming the last two episodes was very moving, which was fortunate because they were emotional anyway.
Macfadyen: They got in touch about a cameo for Tom [in the last episode]. It was really elegant and fun. That was a morning in Hampstead.
“We had several marriages, babies were born and it really transformed everyone’s lives forever.”
Jane Featherstone
Nalluri: The very last day was Ruth’s death scene. The very last thing I shot was some helicopter stuff of the White Cliffs of Dover where Ruth and Harry were going to live forever and ever.
Featherstone: I remember going out to watch Ruth being shot, standing there thinking, “This is the end.” We had several marriages, babies were born and it really transformed everyone’s lives forever.
Walker: We’d have happily carried on making it as long as Kudos wanted us to, but that’s why they’re a successful company: they know when to go. It’s a skill. It’s like when you’re out and you think, “God, I should have gone home two hours ago!”
Nalluri: We wrapped out, said goodbye and I thought, “There are no more stories to be mined, we’ve done everything”. Then a week later there were all these stories. Homegrown jihadis, Chelsea Manning, GCHQ spying on the Germans… we couldn’t have made this stuff up. So I rang Jane and Ollie [Madden, producer] and said, “You know there’s a movie in this?”
Featherstone: Maybe it was always destined for the big screen, because it was a little thing dying to be big.
Firth: The movie had been in development hell for ten years, so I knew about it and hoped it would happen. Harry’s were comfortable shoes, but I was kind of ready to move on.
Nalluri: We had a wrap party in a big bar in Kings Cross. A lot of our old cast came back and said goodbye.
Featherstone: We screened the final episode at The Electric Cinema in Portobello and invited everyone who’d been involved in all the series.
“I don’t normally have a problem walking away from things, because you have to be like that as an actor, but it was different with Spooks. It was a bit of a special show for all the actors.”
Nicola Walker
Vincent: Lots of actors, writers and producers from the glorious past and present came along. That was quite nerve-racking for us because they were all the people who’d made the show what it was before we joined.
Featherstone: It was a very emotional night. I cried, everyone cried.
Vincent: It was almost a wake for Spooks. I’ve still got the card on my wall that says, “Spooks: loved by all who knew it”.
Firth: I was doing a period thing in Budapest at the time. They had a video link with me with a sword and a long blond wig saying goodbye to everyone.
Penry-Jones: He was on a horse. It was very, very funny.
Walker: It was a bit of a special show for all the actors – and I don’t normally have a problem walking away from things, because you have to be like that as an actor, but it was different with Spooks. I really missed everyone. I really wanted to go back and see them all again.
Nalluri: We had four couples get married on Spooks and there are at least two or three Spooks babies around. Spooklets! There was a lot of romance on the show.
Heggessey: It’s still one of the things I’m most proud of in my time at BBC One. It was a real highpoint of British TV drama.
Vincent: It sounds strange but Spooks was a better show than it needed to be. It delivered on the thrills and had a lovely cynicism, but it really tried to engage in what was happening in the world.
