So gripping you’ll have to remind yourself to breathe: CHRISTOPHER STEVENS is blown away by 護衛

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True, she’s just an actress playing the 役割 but it’s no surprise that Keeley Hawes, beloved for portraying matriarch Louisa in The Durrells, can be a ruthlessly ambitious 政治家，政治屋 in 護衛

THE BODYGUARD, BBC ONE

率ing:

Any woman who can 選び出す／独身-handedly bring up four unruly children is 有能な of running a country.

True, she’s just an actress playing the 役割 but it’s no surprise that Keeley Hawes, beloved for portraying matriarch Louisa in The Durrells, can be a ruthlessly ambitious 政治家，政治屋 in 護衛 (BBC1).

She plays Home 長官 Julia Montague, plotting her most direct 大勝する into No 10. (Where writer Jed Mercurio got the inspiration for the character of a 女性（の） Home Sec, 目的（とする）ing for the 最高の，を越す 職業 with almost robotic precision, it’s hard to imagine!)

One moment Julia is ladling compliments の上に her new police protector, played by Richard Madden, the next, she’s snapping: ‘I don’t need you to 投票（する） for me, only to 保護する me’ ― and, when she’s 推定する／予想するing a gentleman 報知係, tells the 護衛 to ‘f*** off ― no offence’.

The hapless assistant who 流出／こぼすs coffee over Julia’s blouse, moments before an interview on Andrew Marr’s show, is lucky to be 単に 解任するd and not ritually disembowelled in 議会 Square.

In fact, the one 失望 about 護衛 is that Keeley Hawes is not in every scene. She’s portraying a political chancer that テレビ視聴者s could quickly love to hate as much as wicked Francis Urquhart played by the late Ian Richardson in House Of Cards.

This six-part series opened with a 20-minute 活動／戦闘 sequence that saw former special ops 兵士 David Budd (Madden) 直面する and 武装解除する a 自殺 爆撃機 on a packed 通勤（学）者 train.

Every 発射 told us something 決定的な about Budd, played by Renfrewshire-born Madden with a bull-necked truculence.

This six-part series opened with a 20-minute 活動／戦闘 sequence that saw former special ops 兵士 David Budd (Madden) 直面する and 武装解除する a 自殺 爆撃機 on a packed 通勤（学）者 train

In the first few seconds, we realised he was 苦しむing from 地位，任命する-traumatic 強調する／ストレス disorder because, dozing on the train, he heard the clatter of the 跡をつけるs as machine-gun 解雇する／砲火／射撃.

It’s this economical style, this trick of sketching his characters with quick, deft lines, that made Mercurio’s police 汚職 serial Line Of 義務 so 広範囲にわたって admired. Budd appears more コンビナート／複合体 with each scene. By the time he’d 武装解除するd the woman 爆撃機, 手渡すd her to the police and 回避するd 集まり 虐殺（する）, we’d learned enough about him to fill a novel.

This is a man who cannot switch off for a moment, who searches for danger with every ちらりと見ること. He is able to 失敗させる／負かす the 爆撃機 because, for a 分裂（する） second, he’d already seen a man on the 壇・綱領・公約 behaving suspiciously with a 動きやすい phone.

Budd’s punctilious 尊敬（する）・点 for 当局 is a pretence, and he has no qualms about disobeying direct orders. His controlled 静める is 偽の, too: there’s violent 激怒（する）, 泡ing under the veneer.

護衛 is headline 演劇. Small wonder that so many Beeb 星／主役にするs were clamouring for cameos: watch closely and you’ll see or hear Martha Kearney, Laura Kuenssberg and John Humphrys from the BBC’s News team の中で many others

He’s a good father but an impossible husband, who is taking the break-up from his 脅すd wife 不正に ― so 不正に, in fact, that he 減少（する）s dark hints about harbouring suicidal thoughts.

Most of all, Budd 非難するs 政治家，政治屋s for everything that he went through while serving in the 武装した 軍隊s.

He had 公約するd, while fighting in Afghanistan, that if he ever 設立する himself with one of Westminster’s finest in his sights, he’d pull the 誘発する／引き起こす and take 復讐 for the comrades he’d seen killed. And now he’s guarding the Home 長官 . . .

All the best heroes are filled with inner 騒動 and 相反する 願望（する）s, but this lad’s off the 規模.

護衛 is headline 演劇. Small wonder that so many Beeb 星／主役にするs were clamouring for cameos: watch closely and you’ll see or hear Martha Kearney, Laura Kuenssberg and John Humphrys from the BBC’s News team の中で many others.

In the first few seconds, we realised Budd was 苦しむing from 地位，任命する-traumatic 強調する／ストレス disorder because, dozing on the train, he heard the clatter of the 跡をつけるs as machine-gun 解雇する／砲火／射撃

With the second episode tonight, the BBC has taken a 危険 in 開始する，打ち上げるing it as a 二塁打 法案 over the Bank Holiday 週末, while much of the country might be away from their TV 始める，決めるs.

Also, the Beeb hopes to steal a march on ITV, which is 開始する，打ち上げるing its own autumn season next Sunday with yet another adaptation of Thackeray’s 1848 classic novel Vanity Fair.

The BBC’s bold manoeuvre deserves to 支払う／賃金 off.

If you 行方不明になるd the first episode last night, I 勧める you to quickly catch up on iPlayer, for 護衛 is intelligent, psychological storytelling so gripping you’ll have to remind yourself to breathe.

• BODYGUARD continues on BBC1 tonight at 9pm.????

It’s taken chameleon Keeley Hawes 29 years to become box office gold but the wait was 価値（がある） it as she steals show after show, 令状s CHRISTOPHER STEVENS?

Some young actresses become 星／主役にするs 夜通し. But London cabbie’s daughter Keeley Hawes had to go 権利 around the houses.

Her 29-year career has never 長，率いるd in a straight line ― going from period-演劇 soft porn to a 残虐な 罪，犯罪 serial, gut-wrenching emotional whodunits, 経由で a joyful family saga 始める，決める in Corfu.

Now it’s the 辛勝する／優位-of-the-seat political thriller, 護衛.

Some young actresses become 星／主役にするs 夜通し. But London cabbie’s daughter Keeley Hawes had to go 権利 around the houses (pictured in promo 発射 for the 護衛)

Keeley Hawes as DI Alex Drake in 2008's Ashes to Ashes

As the 42-year-old mother-of-three has 円熟したd, she 事業／計画（する）s a twin attraction. Women admire her strong, maternal characters, who 辞退する to be held 支援する by men. At the same time, men find her alluring ― men of all ages, from lads young enough to be her sons to bingo-playing grandads.

It’s ra re that an actress is popular with both sexes, for opposite 推論する／理由s, but Keeley Hawes 達成するs it. By taking on so many different 役割s, she has 避けるd 存在 typecast. Her chameleon 質s mean she often looks radically different from one part to the next.

It’s a surprise that the chillingly 激しい, panda-注目する，もくろむd 探偵，刑事 in Line Of 義務 is the same woman as the rosy-cheeked, smiling mother with hair-roller curls in The Durrells.?

This is a large part of the 推論する／理由 why we don’t say: ‘Oh, not her again!’ She not only looks different in every 役割, but she brings different mannerisms, a different 発言する／表明する, a whole new personality to every 役割.

Keely Hawes as Louisa Durrell in the Durrells

Her looks have been compared to Keira Knightley’s, but she 欠如（する）s the self-吸収するd haughtiness. She is too 負かす／撃墜する-to-earth: that’s why, while Knightley is the 直面する of Chanel, Hawes advertised Boots No 7 make-up 範囲 for five years.

One is Hollywood Boulevard, the other is Hendon High Street.

Mixing glamour with a no-nonsense 欠如（する） of pretension makes for a long-継続している 控訴，上告, but it also has the disadvantage of p reventing meteoric stardom.

Richard Madden as David Budd and Keely Hawes as Julia Montague in the 護衛

Every time her career took off, she slammed on the ブレーキs, either by taking long gaps for maternity leave or by making sudden 転換s into different types of TV. 徐々に, though, she has become a family favourite and box office gold.

She’s 製図／抽選 comparisons with multi-talented British actresses of an older 世代 such as Helen Mirren and Diana Rigg, who were also underestimated because they were seen as sexy.

Keeley Hawes in Line of 義務 in 2014

She has a touch of Joanna Lumley, too ― terribly English, but you wouldn’t want to make her cross. There’s steel under the pale 肌.?

Hawes started 事実上の／代理 at nine, after winning a scholarship to Sylvia Young theatre school in London, 近づく the 会議 広い地所 behind Marylebone 駅／配置する where her taxi-driver dad 選ぶd up fares. She has said: ‘There were six of us in the house, 存在 brought up by one person, and we didn’t have a lot of money.’

At 16, she left school and, after working in McDonald’s and 週末 転換s at a supe rmarket, became a model. ‘I was scouted in the street,’ she says. ‘It took me 完全に by surprise. I was an ぎこちない 十代の少年少女, taller than a lot of the boys ― that gawky, gangly teen look. An ugly duckling thing!’

While working as a fashion 抑留する for Cosmopolitan magazine, she was 招待するd to audition for the Dennis Potter TV 演劇 Karaoke, about a girl who 作品 in a seedy karaoke 妨げる／法廷，弁護士業 and is 殺人d. Potter’s plays had a 評判 for 存在 crammed with sex scenes.?

But instead of continuing to take sexy 役割s, Hawes switched to 衣装 演劇 and a part in a six-hour adaptation of Charles Dickens’ Our 相互の Friend.

But she turned the period 演劇 genre on its 長，率いる with a racy lesbian BBC2 演劇, 始める，決める in the 1890s, Tipping The Velvet. Screenwriter Andrew Davies hyped up his adaptation as ‘indescribably filthy’ and sensational 圧力（をかける） headlines 必然的に followed with scenes 含むing a leather sex-toy.

Keeley Hawes as Kitty in Tipping the Velvet (left), pictured with Rachel Stirling as Nan

Hawes played Kitty Butler, a male impersonator w orking the music halls who seduces a waitress. The actress stoked publicity by 説: ‘I 完全に 関係のある to Kitty. 井戸／弁護士席, not 完全に, because I’m not lesbian. I’m bi.’?

Hawes has 繰り返して 支援する- pedalled on this （人命などを）奪う，主張する. ‘Maybe what I meant,’ she later said, ‘is that everyone is a little bit bisexual. I’ve been married twice, both times to men.’ The first marriage, to 漫画家 Spencer McCallum, was short-lived. She then fell in love with actor Matthew Macfadyen on the 始める，決める of 秘かに調査する serial Spooks and married him.

She has a daughter from her first marriage and another daughter and a son from the second.

By 2008, she was starring in the dark comedy/演劇 Ashes To Ashes, as a time-travelling 探偵，刑事, と一緒に Philip Glenister as foul-mouthed, chauvinist DCI 遺伝子 追跡（する）.?

But it was playing 堅い-as-nails DI Lindsay Denton in series two and three of Line Of 義務 that 発表するd Keeley Hawes as a 罪，犯罪 演劇 actress, 配達するing lines as hard as punches.

Denton was under 調査 for 嫌疑者，容疑者／疑うd links to organised 罪，犯罪, and Hawes’s 業績／成果 earned her a Bafta 指名／任命.

As the 探偵，刑事, she wore no make-up and her greasy hair clung to her jowls. The same intensity went into her 描写 of Gemma, in The 行方不明の ― as an Army wife whose teenage daughter is held 捕虜 by a 性の sadist.

At the same time, she was on our 審査するs playing older-than-her-years Louisa Durrell, who escapes to Corfu before World War II with her four children.

Part of the 推論する／理由 for this success must be Hawes’s 拒絶 to have cosmetic 外科. ‘Botox and other fillers make everybody look the same,’ she says, ‘with the big cheekbones where they fill you up. It’s cheaper to have a fringe!’

As the Durrell mum, she has cemen ted her as a telly favourite: a romantic, an eccentric, a bit of a boozer and a ferocious 闘士，戦闘機, Louisa epitomises British spirit.

With the next 一連の The Durrells 存在 the last, it means Hawes never hangs on to a 役割 too long. She’s filming three more TV series: Mrs Wilson (as a 未亡人 who discovers her dead husband’s secret life), 秘かに調査する 演劇 Jerusalem, and the 冷淡な War thriller Summer Of ロケット／急騰するs.

Hawes is 毅然とした she will never move to Hollywood. ‘There’s a 抱擁する machine that comes with big-予算 films,’ she says ‘It’s too 脅すing for me.’

She prefers to be at home with her children. They are lucky ― and so are we.?