Slow Horses' showrunner to stand down as hit Gary Oldman spy drama arrives for season 5

Slow Horses showrunner and lead writer Will Smith has revealed he is leaving the hit Apple TV+ spy series which returns this week for its fifth season. The actor and comedian has been at the helm of the black comedy featuring a bunch of MI5 rejects stuck in a backwater of the intelligence services since it premiered in 2022.

But he told the Radio Times this week that the intense schedule for the show, which is based on the bestselling novels by Mick Herron, meant with great "sadness" that he had to stand down from his role. "I feel I'm going out at a good time and leaving the show and the characters in an interesting place. I was very emotional. There were tears, but not in front of everyone," he said. "Even now, talking about it, I feel the emotion. It's a very hard thing to leave."

Smith, 54, admitted he didn't want to be the "ghost at the wedding" as screenwriter Gaby Chiappe, 61, known for Vera, Shetland and Misbehaviour, takes over as showrunner for season six, adding: "It's not something I could do part-time or have oversight of. It was mine and now it's theirs."

Smith, who worked on The Thick Of It and Veep with Armando Iannucci, playing Tory special advisor Phil Smith in the former, has helped the drama win a legion of fans and the fifth seasons is already being hailed as the best and funniest yet by critics.

Based on Herron's 2018 book London Rules, the new series sees Roddy Ho, Slough House's resident IT geek, played by Christopher Chung, at the fore. "I've always read ahead to make sure I don't die and can pay my mortgage," the 37-year-old actor told Radio Times. "[Roddy] takes front and centre this season."

The series also features a rabble-rousing politician, Dennis Gimball, an angry Eurospeptic played by Christopher Villiers and apparently based on Nigel Farage, and a London Mayor, played by Ted Lasso's Nick Mohammed, who admits there will be comparisons between his character and Sadiq Khan.

"I think that there will inevitably be people who are drawing comparisons to the current Mayor of London, but [...] this was written a while ago," he said at a Radio Times event at the BFI.

"Yes, I guess it is quite sad that some of it feels really current now, but he's not based on one particular person. I think he represents a side of politics, which I guess is left-leaning, but he's by no means without fault. He's vain, he grandstands a lot, he likes the sound of his own voice, he uses as many things as he can to his own advantage. He tries to score political points."

• Slow Horses season five starts on Wednesday on Apple TV+