What to watch tonight: Secret Service is ITV's gripping spy thriller based on the real experiences of a journalist

If you're wondering what to watch on TV tonight, look no further than ITV's spy thriller, Secret Service.

Airing from April 27 at 9pm on ITV1 and ITVX, Gemma Arterton leads an incredibly talented cast of some of acting's biggest names, in the five-part series.

Gemma takes the role of Kate Henderson, a seemingly ordinary civil servant married to Stuart (Rafe Spall,) who also has two teenage children.

In reality, Kate is a senior MI6 officer who heads the Russia Desk at the Secret Intelligence Service.

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When Kate's undercover operations gather evidence that a high-ranking UK politician could be working as a Russian asset, the race is on for her to uncover the traitor.

A brutal murder pushes Kate and her team into the spotlight, and she's forced to bridge the dangerous world of espionage with her life as wife and mother - the struggle is on to hold her family together and protect her reputation within MI6.

The show is based on the 2020 novel of the same name by ITV News anchor Tom Bradby, and is informed by his experiences as a journalist.

During a Q&A about Secret Service, Tom says, "One of the luxuries of my day job as a journalist is that I have a lot of access to people. So, I have met several people over the years in the security services, both in MI5 and MI6 and the police."

He adds, "Obviously, there are novelists who make the whole thing up and good for them. That's great. But given my day job and my background as a journalist, I'd want it to feel as real as possible. I'm doing my level best in my research to be as accurate as I possibly can."

He continues, "I've spent a significant part of my working life covering politics, and if it doesn't feel real to me, then I don't really want to write it."

The journalist also says that when he first wrote Secret Service, it felt very "cutting edge." However, given the current state of the world, he follows that up with, "But I'm a little bit shocked about the fact that Secret Service has gone on feeling more and more relevant every year."

"It certainly isn't getting any less relevant," he shares. Tom Bradby also adds insight into just how his job allows him to gather real experiences for his novels.

"You're hearing things that obviously other people may not be hearing, and that allows you to pick up on things," he says, adding that this allows him to "see the way something's going, maybe before it is immediately obvious to other people," which is perhaps how his novels appear to be predictive of the future.

The fact the drama is rooted in reality, was one of the main draws for Gemma Arterton when she took on the role of Kate.

"I loved the part. It's so complex," she says, continuing, "These spies live amongst us. They have families and day-to-day lives, which they have to manage. We don't often see that in the spy genre."

Praising how well Tom wrote her character, Gemma shares, "He writes women very, very well. And so, I did feel very intuitively connected to Kate's motivations."

Secret Service airs from April 27 at 9pm on ITV1 and ITVX.