''The Whistleblowers'' is a British drama series, first broadcast on

ITV ITV or iTV may refer to: ITV *Independent Television (ITV), a British television network, consisting of: ** ITV (TV network), a free-to-air national commercial television network covering the United Kingdom, the Isle of Man, and the Channel Islan ...

from 27 September to 1 November 2007. The series stars

Richard Coyle Richard Coyle is an English actor. He portrayed lead role of Father Faustus Blackwood in Netflix series '' Chilling Adventures of Sabrina'', and Jeff Murdock in the sitcom ''Coupling''. Early and personal life Coyle was born in Sheffield, En ...

and

Indira Varma Indira Anne Varma (born 27 September 1973) is a British actress and narrator. Her film debut and first major role was in '' Kama Sutra: A Tale of Love''. She has gone on to appear in the television series ''The Canterbury Tales'', ''Rome'', ''L ...

as personal injury lawyers Ben Graham and Alisha Cole, who set themselves up in private practice after witnessing a covert team of police officers kidnapping a suspect in broad daylight. Described as ITV's answer to '' Hustle'' and '' Spooks'', only one series of the programme was broadcast, before it was axed by the network. A DVD of the series was subsequently released on 12 November 2007.

Critical reception

Gerard O'Donovan of ''

The Telegraph ''The Telegraph'', ''Daily Telegraph'', ''Sunday Telegraph'' and other variant names are popular names for newspapers. Newspapers with these titles include: Australia * ''The Telegraph'' (Adelaide), a newspaper in Adelaide, South Australia, publ ...

'' said of the opening episode: "ITV has been looking for a rival to BBC One’s glossy hits Hustle and Spooks for some time now. The Whistleblowers, a drama series about a pair of toothsome young lawyers wielding the twin swords of truth and justice to expose corporate and government corruption, was commissioned with that in mind. And with the likes of scriptwriter Tony Marchant at the helm and the likeable

and

in the lead roles, ITV must have felt they were onto a winner. For last night’s opener to get off to a great start only to ebb away into cliché and numbskullery was, therefore, more than usually disappointing. The characters were well set up. Ben (Coyle) and Alisha (Varma) were lawyers working for the same City firm. He was the cut and run merchant, she the cautious high-flyer. Driving home one night they came across a half-naked hooded man being bundled into a Range Rover by big chaps in Army fatigues, so they did what any self-respecting lawyers would do – they backed off. So far so good, but unfortunately their lives then became a morass of unlikely coincidences and unlawyer-like behaviour. The hooded man conveniently turned up again in the house opposite their flat and the big chaps left the curtains open while indulging in a spot of torture. Not only that, they left the front door open while signing for a delivery, allowing Ben to sneak in and find a very articulate terrorist suspect in the basement. “I’m being held by rogue British security agents. It’s a big conspiracy. Can you call my campaigning lawyer for me,” only mildly paraphrases his actual words. Suffice to say that the bad guys were defeated and our dynamic duo, having run the gamut of MI5 nastiness, emerged grinning like Cheshire cats, announcing to a breathless media scrum that they were founding an agency for fellow lid-lifters in need of white knights. After that start, I wouldn’t trust them to challenge a parking ticket. But there are five more episodes to come. Let’s hope they’re more convincing."

Cast

as Ben Graham *

as Alisha Cole * Daniel Ryan as Kenny Reed * Paul Freeman as Joseph Cole

Episodes

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Whistleblowers, The 2007 British television series debuts 2007 British television series endings 2000s British drama television series British detective television series 2000s British crime television series 2000s British mystery television series ITV television dramas 2000s British television miniseries English-language television shows