Nightsleeper review: Worse than the nightbus to London

Two stars

Board the night train from Central Station in Glasgow and wake the next day in London, refreshed and ready for the fray. No pre-dawn flights, no hiking from Luton, just let the train take the strain.

Sounds wonderful, in theory. In reality, hell on wheels. Six hours of shoogling sideways through the night, a shared toilet, and pitched off the train at Euston clutching a stale croissant and what’s left of your dignity. (Or that was how it used to be: is the new Caledonian Sleeper better?)

The same mismatch between promise and reality occurs in Nightsleeper, a new six-part thriller set on a runaway train. The endless BBC trailers would have you believe it’s a regular rollercoaster ride. In the event, it is six hours of bum-numbing nonsense that makes the Father Ted remake of Speed - Dougal driving a milk float instead of Sandra Bullock a city bus - look like The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (Walter Matthau classic version).

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But it looks good. It looks great in fact. Made by Euston Films (Dublin Murders, The Sister) it opens with Joe (Joe Cole) arriving at our own dear Glasgow Central.

As he walks along the platform Joe sees a suspicious-looking hoodie sort following a woman pushing a pram. The hoodie snatches her bag and legs it, with Joe and the train staff giving chase.

It’s shaky cameras are go-go as the thief and his pursuers sprint along the corridors and off and on the train. Joe, who turns out to be a police officer, finally nabs the hoodie and hands him over to the local plods. Job done, he wangles an upgrade to first class where he is greeted by applauding passengers.

Now there are plenty of red flags being raised here, starting with those appreciative Weegies. Really? Edinburgh at a push, but not Glaswegians.

As it turns out (spoilers ahead) the mayhem was all a distraction to take the attention away from the real task - planting a detonator in the driver’s cab.

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The driver is Boaby the barman from Still Game, with the rest of the cast including some faces from River City, James Cosmo as a grumpy auld ex-train driver (wonder how he will figure in proceedings?), Sharon Small as a transport minister (ditto), and Katie Leung playing a “lifestyle trends reporter”, whatever that entails. 

It soon becomes clear that Leung’s character, Rachel, is there to act as “Designated Young Person Who Knows About Computers and Stuff”. As such it falls to Rachel to explain that the train has been “hackjacked”. Not hijacked, hackjacked. “Hijacks are so twentieth-century,” she sniffs.

The phenomenon is so well established a government department has been set up to deal with the threat. The National Cyber Security Centre it is called. Alas, it has so few staff the technical director, a Welsh woman by the name of Abby, has to turn back from holiday to deal with the crisis.

Abby makes contact with the runaway train and designates Joe as her man in the buffet car. Can the two of them tame the runaway train before it reaches Euston and makes an awful mess out of Accessorize?

It’s a struggle to stay awake, which is not how it should be. The aptly named Nightsleeper has been made as a real-time thriller, which means one hour of action plays out over an hour. It’s supposed to draw the viewer in and add to the tension. Not here, though.

Every now and then a too silly by-half twist comes along, or a slab of terrible dialogue, and the action screeches to a halt. “He’s the Michelangelo of mansplaining!” says the boss of the maverick computer whizz who was on no account to be brought back for this crisis (two minutes later …). “You Liz-Trussed yourself into that position” he yells back. Eh? Pause the action and rewind all you like, that line is never going to make sense.

There are reasons to stay with Nightsleeper, not least Sharon Small’s appallingly behaved Cabinet minister, and the occasional funny line. “Next time I’m getting the megabus,” says one passenger as the train hurtles onwards.

Now that would have been a much better idea for a thriller. “Nightbus: Glasgow to London in ten hours that will feel like ten days. Featuring scenes of an unscheduled 3am stop at the nearest services for police to be called.”

With any luck, that will be the next drama along.