The Ipcress File isn't your garden variety spy story, nor is it a gloom-and-doom picture of horrible people doing horrible things. It's in the balance between those two extremes that The Ipcress File manages to fit itself — and while it's far from perfect, this is definitely a show that'll have you waiting with bated breath every week for the next thrilling episode.

The drama is engaging, but fans of the book should prepare for a wildly different story.

Whether or not you're a fan of the Michael Caine film, this TV version has both the pedigree and big-budget feel to recommend it. And even if you're familiar with the famous plot, there may just be some surprises in store.

Cole’s Palmer is fiercely intelligent, occasionally flippant, and liable to push people’s buttons. It’s a fine performance, if a little detached for an everyman hero.

One of the adaptation’s pleasures is also its peril: it invites us to compare Joe Cole’s interpretation with Caine’s. Fortunately, Cole is a Harry Palmer for our times. ... It’s not a showy performance, but all the better for that to punch up his rare bons mots.

This six-part series strays into homage, right down to replicating the moment in which Palmer gropes for his glasses to bring the room into focus. ... Cole homes in on the character’s insolence and aloofness, but doesn’t deliver on charm.

You could, as the series winds along and pads out the time with a subplot about Dalby’s former Soviet lover, wish for some of the film’s silliness to enliven the lovely photography and bespoke nostalgia. And the story, while more coherent and consequential, still has a laboratory-maze quality to it. You could also wish, it must be said, no matter how unfairly, for some of Caine’s blunt magnetism.