HUGELY popular Borders actor Jack Lowden is a last minute addition to this year’s Borders Book Festival and will join author Mick Herron on stage on Thursday June 16.
Then it’s back to London where he will start filming series three and four of Herron’s darkly humorous spy thriller Slow Horses.
Lowden plays hero River Cartwright, one of a team of failed intelligence operatives under the command of their cantankerous boss, played by Gary Oldman.
Herron will bring the audience bang up to date with Bad Actors, his seventh novel in the series which has been hailed as being ‘at the summit of a new golden age in spy fiction’.
The 32-year-old who was brought up in Oxton and educated at Channelkirk Primary and Earlston High School is currently filming ‘The Gold’, a six part series inspired by the true story of the UK’s iconic Brink’s-Mat robbery alongside Hugh Bonneville, Dominic Cooper, Charlotte Spencer and Sean Harris.
And he kindly took time out of his busy schedule to tell us what to expect on Thursday night.
He told the Border Telegraph: “I’m really looking forward to coming back to the Borders Book Festival. I was there a few years ago at the Sir Walter Scott Prize event and loved it.
“It will be great to be on stage with Mick Herron who is a genius. Slow Horses is about a group of MI5 agents who have made horrendous mistakes or are not very good but because they are civil servants, they can’t be fired. So they are sent to Slough House to push paper.
“I play River Cartwright who is a discontented but more than competent spook alongside Gary Oldman who plays the boss Jackson Lamb.
“Gary is a hero to all young aspiring actors and a true gentleman. Even to have done one scene with him would have been great but to work alongside him is fantastic.
“We filmed series one and two back to back and now three and four have been commissioned which is really exciting.
“Series two will be broadcast on Apple TV in the Autumn.”
Lowden is many people’s choice to be the next James Bond and his performance in Slow Horses will have done his chances no harm, but he declined to be drawn on the subject.
“It’s really flattering to be linked with Bond” he answered diplomatically, “but I think Daniel Craig should have continued in the role for a little longer.”
Slow Horses with Mick Herron and Jack Lowden will be in the Baillie Gifford Marquee on Thursday 16 June at 7:30 pm. Ticket prices £15 | £13
Tickets now available at www.bordersbookfestival.org or by calling 0131 290 2112.
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