Kidnap and Ransom returns with big trouble in Kashmir

Kidnap and Ransom returns for a second series this week, starring Trevor Eve as an expert hostage negotiator facing his toughest challenge so far.

The story so far

The last series of Kidnap and Ransom followed hostage negotiator Dominic King (Trevor Eve) as he became embroiled in web of multiple kidnappings involving a South African botanist and her family. Meanwhile, his personal life started to unravel, with increasing pressure from his politician wife and a daughter who escaped the family home to live in a religious compound. As problems go, I think that’s just about enough for anyone, don’t you?

In the new series, Dominic is in Kashmir negotiating the release of the Mehtas, a British Asian family kidnapped while on holiday visiting their son Mahavir. As the handover is completed, the police arrive and a shoot-out ensues. Dominic gets the family released, but the kidnappers get away with Mahavir on a tourist bus, where they take all those on board hostage.

When the tourist bus crashes in a packed market square, Dominic has to negotiate for the safety of a multi-national group of people, battling against the intervention of the Indian police and trying to get to the bottom of the kidnappers’ motives. Rather him than me, frankly.

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Trevor Eve on Kidnap and Ransom

Trevor Eve is one of the UK’s best known actors. His television and film credits include Waking the Dead, Bouquet of Barbed Wire, Framed, Hughie Green Most Sincerely and Troy.

What can we expect from the new series?

It’s about a hostage negotiator. The story is seen through the eyes of Dominic King, who is the negotiator. At the beginning of this series Dominic is sewn up in a routine – if there is such thing as routine – negotiation that very quickly escalates into something that’s a lot more than he or the people who did the initial kidnapping expected. It becomes a multinational, high profile, catastrophe; and Dominic is right at the centre.

Did you base the story on real-life events?

We did research. There was a story in Brazil, it didn’t come about in exactly this way, but the situation escalated. A man found himself on a coach and suddenly the cameras of the world were pointing at him and by circumstance, he took a number of people hostage. It ended in disaster.

Do you think you’d have the skills to be a hostage negotiator?

I think I’d be a really bad hostage negotiator; I’m not sure I’d have the patience! It can take weeks and months sometimes to negotiate, and negotiations inevitably go wrong, at least twice as they say. You might go along and at the last minute they want more money – it’s not a smooth process. Also, you have to keep a sense of perspective throughout it all, because you’re negotiating for someone’s life. The real responsibility they have is that the one thing they do wrong could result in the death of the hostage.

How does Dominic’s career affect his personal relationships?

The one thing the negotiators I’ve met all had in common was the difficulty of sustaining a relationship because they spend so much time away. With the five I met, four were on their second marriage. Perhaps it’s because having lived in an isolated male world for so long, they find it difficult to adapt to domesticity.

In Dominic’s case, his second marriage to his wife Sophie is breaking up as we start the show. We’re not sure why it’s breaking up – whether it’s because of the potential relationship with Angela, or just because their marriage has just run its course. In the first series of Kidnap and Ransom his wife said she supported him but now it’s time for him to stay at home and support her career. I think it’s his inability to accept this that causes the rift. In this series we see Sophie embarking on her career, and we do see a development in the relationship between Dominic and Angela.

Kidnap and Ransom starts on ITV1 on Thursday 23 February at 9pm

Did you watch the last series of Kidnap and Ransom? Will you be watching this series? Let us know below.