The Rig review - prepare to explore Martin Compston's haunting North Sea drama
Compston, Iain Glen and the deeply disturbing Mark Bonnar star in this haunting thriller set on an oil rig under attack by supernatural forces. you will have gas

These days it's hard to isolate your characters enough for great drama to happen. You have to rely on dead cell phones, social media rejects, or go off like The Terror or The North Water and put your people in the old days and on a ship and/or polar wasteland. The Rig (Prime Video) does this by placing the protagonists on an oil rig in the North Sea and having all communications shut down by an unknown but fast-acting and possibly supernatural force. As Alwyn, the sage of the crew (Mark Bonnar – an actor so still and unsettling as to be a supernatural force himself) says, "If you keep punching the Earth, it's going to punch you back."


The men are looking forward to being helicoptered home at the end of their latest assignment - all but young Baz (Calvin Demba), who has been bumped into savvy communications man Fulmer (Martin Compston) because the company wants the latter to return for a special meeting. . The us-them rift is further deepened by rumors that the Company is trying to cut fat and all their jobs are at risk. But their transport back to shore is diverted at the last minute to help with an incident on another platform, and trouble soon erupts everywhere. And that's before anyone finds out that Fulmer regularly crosses the Them/Us divide with company representative Rose (Schitt's Creek's Emily Hampshire, who looks uncomfortable in her so-far underwritten role.).

Suddenly, an inexplicable fog rolls in. The tower begins to shake. The modules will shut off (or maybe toggle - that was the jargon-heavy part required of any thriller set in a little-known industry and you don't have to understand it. It's the equivalent of a flashing red 'Danger!' button filling the screen and I wouldn't be without it). The safety kit is deployed, the open staircases are dangerously shrouded in fog. It almost leaks gas and almost burns! There are definitely flames shooting from a nearby platform. That can't be good. Important-looking screens alternate between things that shouldn't be falling and a straight line that shouldn't be straight, and even Mark Bonnar looks almost flustered. "Here," says Rose, "things that can't happen all the time."

Over the barrel… Mark Bonnar as Alwyn in The Rig, a six-part Prime Video thriller.
Over the barrel… Mark Bonnar as Alwyn in The Rig, a six-part Prime Video thriller. Photo: Amazon Prime Video/PA
However, Rose wants the crew to keep working and trust that the system can handle it. But Boss Magnus is firm. "It's none of your business, Rose!" he says. "We're following procedures or people will die!" Rose would obviously love to sacrifice as many workers as needed to meet quarterly production targets (all companies are heartless, of course, but oil companies beat them all), but Magnus is played by Iain Glen, so he wins.


Things take a turn for the worse when Baz laboriously climbs a communications tower in the fog to fix a radio link and – one dead seagull and some ominous noises later – descends less strenuously but almost fatally, shattering into pieces on impact. deck from a great height.


In addition to the supernatural element, the story traces the psychological impact of unwilling imprisonment and lack of contact with the outside world on the men. Hutton (Owen Teale) – a mix of genuine grievances and a penchant for stirring up shit – uses instability to challenge Magnus's authority (yes, even if he's Iain Glen!) and foment rebellion, while others cling more to routine and repression.


Writer David MacPherson's father worked for years on an offshore platform, and MacPherson himself has been involved with organizations working to alleviate the climate crisis since his master's degree in environmental studies. Environmental awareness permeates the story ("We're fossils digging up fossils") without demonizing those who seek work in polluting industries. It's a modern take on an old narrative form, and if there's nothing as jarring, dramatically speaking, as whatever the Big Bad is driving, when it comes to our crew's need to know what's what — including Glen's Secret Sorrow and Mark Addy's role , which is yet to appear unless I manage to catch a glimpse of it under all the security gear, will play — and the faith that it won't all descend into a Lost -style debacle will keep you going until the end.

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