SAS Rogue Heroes, Series 2, BBC One review - Paddy Mayne's renegade warriors invade Italy

Having carved a swathe of terror and destruction through the Axis forces in North Africa, the SAS return for a second series (again written by Steven Knight, and with another rockin’ soundtrack featuring the likes of The Cult’s “She Sells Sanctuary”, Deep Purple’s “Highway Star” and Magazine’s very apt “Shot by Both Sides”).

With the SAS’s founding father, David Stirling, now a prisoner of war in the medieval pile of Forte di Gavi, command of the unit has passed to Paddy Mayne, played with a kind of barely-controlled madness by Jack O’Connell. Now the unit is tasked with being the point of the spear for the Allied invasion of Sicily and southern Italy in 1943.O’Connell delivers a thrilling and frequently blood-curdling performance, as Mayne makes it entirely clear how he sees his objectives and what he thinks about the blundering obtuseness of the military top brass. He’s a keen reader of poetry who frequently speaks in a kind of blank verse, voiced in a rich and resonant Ulster accent. He’s unswervingly committed to finding and destroying the enemy, and he seems to have an extraordinary ability to blot out any inklings of fear or self-doubt. As he puts it, “most of my men are quite keen to live, whereas I am at best equivocal.”

Now renamed the Special Raiding Squadron (though only temporarily), the unit are now given appallingly hazardous tasks like going ashore in the wee small hours to demolish enemy gun positions before the main attack force arrives. An early specimen of this finds them sailing through waters sprinkled with British paratroopers whose gliders have crash-landed in the sea, and despite the survivors’ heart-rending cries for help, Mayne’s team must ignore them and press on regardless.

Despite his iron-hard bravado, Mayne is also aware of how these kinds of experiences will come back to haunt them in the future, and the themes of battle fatigue and post-traumatic shock are explored in several episodes.

One of the main set-pieces in the new series is the battle for the strategically important Italian town of Termoli, where our brave lads find themselves hugely outnumbered as they face an onslaught of German tanks and artillery. They manage to cling on by the skin of their teeth, even though the sneaky Germans have hidden an artillery spotter in the church tower who calls down shellfire on to the British positions, but it’s the timely arrival of 2 SAS and their bazookas which finally tips the scales decisively. This additional SAS regiment is commanded by David Stirling’s brother Bill, played by Gwilym Lee (pictured top) as a solidly professional officer who has to tread an impossible line between the rigid dictates of Army HQ and the freewheeling anarchy of Mayne’s soldiers as they enact the military equivalent of Bazball.

Though the new European setting means we lose some of the exotic allure of the previous Middle Eastern locations, there is at least the recurring presence of resourceful French agent Eve Mansour (Sofia Boutella, pictured above). Having wheedled her way into the confidences of the louche British spymaster Dudley Wrangel Clarke (Dominic West) back in the perfumed fleshpots of Cairo, while also embarking on an affair with David Stirling, Eve keeps miraculously popping up all over the Italian battlefield, flying the flag for the Free French and trying to make sure that General de Gaulle isn’t elbowed out of the strategic picture by the Allies. The chaps are certainly very grateful when she turns up at an opportune moment with a consignment of flame-throwers.

There’s a walk-on appearance by a somewhat unscrupulous General Montgomery (Con O’Neill), and an entertaining subplot starring John Tonkin (Jack Barton, pictured right), who proves himself to be not only intrepid but also phenomenally lucky when he’s confronted with Hitler’s new directive that all captured “commandos” will be shot, whether or not they’re in uniform. And there’s an unrepentant set-up for series three when we follow our heroes aboard the Dakota aircraft which will drop them over Normandy on June 6, 1944. Oi! Steven Knight! Have you written it yet?

• SAS: Rogue Heroes Series 2 is available on BBC iPlayer from 6am on 1 January 2025. Also on BBC One at 9pm on 1, 2 & 5 January and then on succeeding Sundays
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