If you’re up to date with Slow Horses and watched Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy or Smiley’s People, chances are you’re in the market for a spy story with a misunderstood, grizzled central character. Well, Red Joan might just be for you. Released in 2018, the film stars Dame Judi Dench (so you know it’s going to be good) as the titular spy. It’s also directed by Trevor Nunn, who directed Judi and Ian McKellen in Macbeth, so this is going to be an outstanding thesp-fest with quality acting.
The film is set in 2000 but flashes back to events in the 1930s and 1940s. So, if you were a fan of Judi’s period dramas such as Mrs Henderson Presents or Tea With Mussolini, then Red Joan will scratch that itch too.
What is Red Joan about?
Judi plays Joan Elizabeth Stanley, an unassuming elderly woman living in a suburban terrace who's suddenly taken in for questioning by the police one day. She's accused of being a Russian spy, who passed on secrets about the British nuclear weapons programme to the KGB in her youth. Her son, a lawyer, refuses to believe she’s guilty - but is Joan really all she seems?
Red Joan tells Stanley’s story in flashback with Joan played by British actress Sophie Cookson who's best known for starring in the Kingsman series and as Christine Keeler in the BBC’s The Trial of Christine Keeler.
Joan is a student at Cambridge University studying physics when she meets and falls in love with Leo (played by Tom Hughes). Leo is a communist student who introduces Joan to a world of radical politics she hasn’t encountered before. When Joan starts to work on a project to build an atomic bomb, Leo tries to recruit Joan to pass on secrets to the Russians. But while working on the project, Joan falls for Max a professor (played by Stephen Campbell Moore). Caught in a love triangle and witnessing the effects of bombings in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Joan faces a dilemma with consequences that will catch up with her 60 years later.
Judi told The iPaper that Red Joan is "about an amazingly ordinary person who does, in my eyes, a very extraordinary thing."
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Who is in the cast of Red Joan?
The film centres around Dench’s standout performance, but the cast is full of TV stars you’ll recognise.
- Dame Judi Dench (Notes on a Scandal) as Joan Elizabeth Stanley
- Sophie Cookson (The Trial of Christine Keeler) as young Joan
- Tom Hughes (Victoria) as Leo Galich
- Stephen Campbell Moore (Masters of the Air) as Professor Max Davis
- Ben Miles (Douglas is Cancelled) as Joan’s son Nick Stanley
- Nina Sosanya (Teachers) as Ms Hart
- Tereza Srbova (St Trinian’s) as Sonya
- Stephen Boxer (Sister Boniface Mysteries) as Peter Kierl
How can I watch Red Joan?
Red Joan is available to rent and watch now on Prime Video, YouTube, Apple TV and Sky Store.
What other Judi Dench dramas can I watch now?
Notes on a Scandal sees Dame Judi take on a role like never before as a lonely, manipulative schoolteacher who becomes obsessed with a colleague. It’s not a spy film or period piece but if you’re a fan of Judi, this is a must-watch. You can rent Notes on a Scandal from Apple TV and Prime Video. If you’re looking for something cosier, then consider comforting period drama Cranford based on Elizabeth Gaskell’s novel about life in a small village in the 1850s.
