Prisoner on Sky Atlantic: Everything you need to know

Handcuffed to a professional killer. On the run from a crime syndicate. And a new mum just trying to get back to her baby. Sky Atlantic’s high-stakes action thriller Prisoner might just be the most gripping thing on telly this spring. 

If you like your drama fast, frantic and packed with genuine moral complexity, Prisoner is about to become your new obsession. This explosive six-part series starring Golden Globe and BAFTA award nominee Tahar Rahim and Scottish BAFTA award-winner Izuka Hoyle has an irresistible hook – ahem, literally – and a supporting cast so good it would be criminal to miss it. 

Prisoner starts on Sky Atlantic from Thursday 30 April at 9pm on Sky Atlantic HD (CH 111), with all episodes available in Sky Atlantic on demand on the same day. Here’s everything you need to know before you dive in.

Amber Todd (Izuka Hoyle) is a young prison transport officer escorting Tibor Stone (Tahar Rahim) – a dangerous, high-value inmate – to the Old Bailey to testify against a crime syndicate and his former employers. When the convoy is ambushed, Amber does something extraordinary: she handcuffs herself to Tibor. The pair become the sole survivors, shackled to each other and hunted by some of the most ruthless criminals in the country, with a court deadline ticking away.

It’s a show about two people from completely different worlds, forced to rely on each other to survive. And as writer and showrunner Matt Charman puts it, the premise could hardly be more dramatic: “Handcuff those two people together… someone with a strong moral compass, and someone seemingly without morality… and you’ve got drama.”

Inspiration comes from weird places. For Prisoner? It was a set of traffic lights. Charman was in the car with his kids when they pulled up behind a prison transport van. His children were immediately curious – who’s in there? What have they done? – and those questions stayed with him. “It struck me that there was an entire story happening in that vehicle,” he explains.

From that seed grew a richly layered thriller exploring morality, institutional corruption, motherhood and what ordinary people are capable of when pushed to the absolute limit. And to think most people are just waiting for the amber light…

The lead performances are the kind that get people excited about telly. Tahar Rahim – Golden Globe and BAFTA nominee, best known for The Serpent and Un Prophète – plays Tibor, a menacing, calculating former assassin with a hidden past and a twisted moral code. He’s a man who’s spent 20 years as the hunter, but now the tables have turned and he’s the one being hunted.

Opposite him is Scottish BAFTA winner Izuka Hoyle (Boiling Point, Big Boys), playing Amber – smart, determined, morally grounded and absolutely not prepared for any of this. “Amber is the audience’s way into Prisoner,” Hoyle explains. “They’ll watch as Amber encounters a world of violence and crime, a world that she’s spent most of her life trying to fight against and bring to justice.”

The supporting cast is equally stacked. Eddie Marsan (Back To Black) plays Alex Tebbit, the obsessive head of operations at the National Crime Unit. Catherine McCormack (Lockerbie: A Search For Truth) is steely NCU chief Josephine Campbell. Finn Bennett (A Knight Of The Seven Kingdoms) plays Amber’s husband, Olly. Leonie Benesch (September 5) is the cold, lethal contract killer Nina, while Laurie Davidson (Mary & George) plays Declan, the volatile son of Pegasus crime boss Harrison Dempsey (Brían F O’Byrne, Conclave).

Tibor is, by his own reckoning, a sociopath – but a fascinating one. As a professional killer, he’s offed at least 47 people. He’ll use Amber as a weapon while handcuffed to her without a second thought. And yet, as the series unfolds, something more human starts to emerge.

Rahim was drawn to the character precisely because of those layers. “What I love is the grey area he exists in. Real life isn’t simply ‘good’ or ‘bad’, and stories shouldn’t be either. It’s far more interesting to explore how good actions can lead to bad outcomes and vice versa.”

Tibor’s diabetes – a significant detail – becomes an unexpected vulnerability that forces him to depend on Amber in ways he never anticipated, slowly shifting the dynamic between them. He also has a particularly brutal irony following him throughout the series. Namely, the person hunting him, Nina, is an assassin he trained. She knows his every trick. “He spent 20 years as the hunter; suddenly, he’s the hunted. In a way, he’s being chased by a version of himself,” says Rahim.

Amber starts the series as a new mum returning to work after maternity leave – principled, ambitious, studying criminal psychology, married to a lovely stay-at-home dad. She believes in justice, reform and doing the right thing. By the end of her experience with Tibor, none of that will look the same. 

“Essentially, she starts the show as a prison transport officer, and she quite quickly becomes a prisoner,” Hoyle says. “The series then becomes about survival… Suddenly, the line between moral good and bad is blurred.” The moral questions the show poses are uncomfortable and compelling in equal measure. What is a person willing to do to protect their child? How quickly does a moral code bend under pressure? And who decides what “good” even means?

“After reading the first couple of scripts, I was dying to find out what happened next,” Hoyle adds.

It threads the needle between both. Director Otto Bathurst (Peaky Blinders), who directed the first three episodes, came in with a very clear vision: cinematic, propulsive and never letting up. “We wanted saturated colours, wet streets and a graphic novel intensity combined with emotional realism,” he says.

The tunnel ambush sequence in episode 1 – the moment where everything kicks off – is a masterclass in action film-making. It was originally scripted to take place on a country road, but Bathurst pushed for something bigger. Production found dual tunnels outside Cardiff, shut them for four consecutive nights, and shot with two units, six cameras, thousands of blank rounds and a whole lot of pyrotechnics. Rahim describes it as being “like a kid in a playground… It was loud, chaotic and brilliantly executed.”

About 95% of the show was filmed on location rather than on sets – an unusually high ratio that gives the series its restless, kinetic feel. “Constantly shifting locations was key to maintaining a sense of momentum and visual freshness,” says Bathurst.

It sounds like a logistical nightmare – and it was. The production team created more than 30 variations of the cuffs for different shots and stunts: hero versions, rubber versions, safety-release versions. In the end, both Rahim and Hoyle preferred the real ones because of how they grounded their performances. Every physical action had to be choreographed together; every scene negotiated.

Hoyle describes one rehearsal memory fondly: “They asked us to do a roly-poly in one scene, handcuffed together… Tahar and I practised and practised doing these roly-polies together, never to be seen again. I can now roly-poly holding someone’s hand.”

As for the relationship that developed between the two leads? Both speak about it with genuine warmth. “Being handcuffed to someone for four months filming could easily be a nightmare, but Izuka is a beautiful soul,” says Rahim.

Pegasus is an international crime syndicate with both criminal enterprises and legitimate businesses, run by the quietly ruthless Harrison (Brían F O’Byrne). His son Declan (Laurie Davidson) is impulsive and desperate to prove himself – “the black sheep of this crime family,” as Davidson describes him. And then there’s Nina (Leonie Benesch).

She is perhaps the show’s most electrifying creation: a contract killer trafficked into the UK at 16 and trained by Tibor himself, now hunting the man who made her. Benesch describes Nina as “ambitious and ruthless, with an ex-military physicality. She rarely speaks. Her movement says more than her words.” 

To prepare, Benesch trained with a former Marine on weapon handling and posture, worked with a movement teacher, and did extensive stunt rehearsals. The result is a character who feels genuinely dangerous – someone Benesch describes as “almost Terminator-like”.

The show also takes a clear-eyed look at the idea that the institutions meant to uphold justice can be just as dangerous as the criminals they pursue.

This is where Prisoner really earns its prestige drama credentials. Sure, it’s a gripping chase thriller – but it also wrestles with questions about morality, corruption, institutional power and what it means to be a parent. Writer Matt Charman is clear that no character here is simply good or simply bad. As director Pia Strietmann (who helms episodes 4-6) puts it: “It’s not a story about romance or friendship; it’s about two wildly different people navigating a situation none of them chose, and what they learn from each other.”

If you want a TV with absolute moral certainty, then Prisoner is not for you. For everyone else, you won’t want to miss it.

Prisoner is a Sky Original series airing on Sky Atlantic from Thursday 30 April at 9pm on Sky Atlantic HD (CH 111), with all episodes available in Sky Atlantic on demand on the same day. The finale of the six-part series will be on Sky Atlantic HD on Thursday 4 June.

Sky Atlantic is available on Virgin TV 360 or our Stream box to all Virgin TV customers with a Sky Entertainment package. Don’t have the right package or box? Upgrade to our latest Virgin TV box or add Sky Entertainment channels to your package.

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