Summer of Rockets Review

Writer/director Stephen Poliakoff is a favourite of the BBC. His most recent series is a Cold War-set spy-thriller/family drama.

Samuel Petrukhin (Toby Stephens) is a Russian Jew who moved to the UK when he was eight. He’s a middle-class man who wants to be accepted by the British establishment, but he is looked at with suspicion because of his national and religious background. Samuel gets the attention of the Security Services because of his latest invention and his friendship with the Shaw family and it leads Samuel into a complex web where he doesn’t know who to trust.

Summer of Rockets comes across like a Graham Greene novel. He was famous for writing twisty, entertaining thrillers. One of his most famous novels, The Ministry of Fear was about a man released from a psychiatric hospital who accidentally comes across a Nazi Spy Ring. Summer of Rockets ends up having a similar sense of paranoia because Samuel ends not knowing who to trust. One side tells him that the Soviet Union has infiltrated many parts of the British state, the other says an organisation of imperialists was planning to launch a coup. Samuel finds evidence supporting both claims. Both scenarios were equally hard to believe.

Samuel’s story also has the air of a Hitchcockian thriller. One of Alfred Hitchcock’s favourite plots was having ordinary people getting involved in extraordinary situations. This was what happened to Samuel: he was an inventor and businessman who had to learn very quickly how to work as a spy.

As a spy story Summer of Rockets was functional. It had all the twists and turns that one would expect and Poliakoff knows how to make a scene tense. He was able to make a scene where a woman tries to break off her heal compelling, so it was easy for Poliakoff to make scenes where there’s a risk that Samuel might be discovered tense. It was only in the last episode when the plot falls apart because the suspension of disbelief couldn’t be maintained.

One of the big themes of the series was Samuel’s place in British society. The first scene of the series was his family going to a horse racing event, dressed in their finest clothes, and nearly get refused entry because they have a Russian name. Samuel wants to be seen as an English gentleman, so he makes his daughter take lessons to act like a lady and sends his son to expensive boarding despite his company’s financial issues. His wife was Jewish aristocracy, but her status was lowered due to the marriage. Even though Samuel tries he was still seen as an English gentleman he’s referred to as the ‘Russian’ or ‘Jew’ and suffers because of his background. He was considered a security risk when he supplied hearing aids to Churchill when he was Prime Minister. And he was forced to hear some anti-Semitic views like ‘Jews control the world.’

A running theme in Poliakoff’s work is the dark secrets of the elites. His two-part drama The Lost Prince was about the Royal Family, seen through the eyes of Prince John who was hidden away. Whilst his 2009 feature film Glorious 39 was about members of the British aristocracy who try to align themselves with the Nazis before the Second World War. Summer of Rockets showed distrust and disloyalty within the British elite.

As well as the main plot involving Samuel there were a couple of subplots. The biggest subplot involved Kathleen Shaw (Keeley Hawes) searching for her son. Anthony Shaw disappeared 5-years before the event of the series. Kathleen constantly calls his old friends and goes to her old school in the hope she can find a new lead. It’s hinted that his disappearance could be linked to the complex spy web.

Samuel’s daughter Hannah (Lily Sacofsky) also has a prominent role in the series. Hannah was shown to be an intelligent 18-year-old who was more interested in politics and literature. But her parents want to her fulfil more traditional gender roles. During the series Hannah has a fear of nuclear war – she even had a Sarah Connor moment when she has a daydream about a nuclear strike. Hannah also develops a few relationships during the series, including with a couple of men and one of her father’s employees.

Hannah was like Jenny Mellor in the 2009 film An Education. Both had similar characteristics and character journeys and Sacofsky gave a performance worthy of Carey Mulligan as a smart but uncertain woman. Along with her performance in the Jane Austen series, Sandition Sacofsky is an actress to watch out for.

Summer of Rockets did attract a lot of talent like former Bond villain Toby Stephens, Line of Duty star Keeley Hawes, and acting veteran Timothy Spall. Alongside them were lots of respected actors and emerging talent and as you would expect from a Poliakoff project the acting was of the highest level.

The BBC spent a lot of money on the series, especially during the last episode where it featured a fleet of tanks. It was a lavish production with excellent costumes, location, and cinematography and series had a cinematic quality to it. Poliakoff must have taken notes from Netflix and Amazon because all the episodes end on a cliffhanger and flowed into each other. It’s the type of show that can be binged watched and it could be edited to become a six-hour-long film.

Summer of Rockets was well made and ambitious prestige show by the BBC and was a great showcase for most of the actors. Even with its story faults Summer of Rockets was compelling viewing.