A doctor framed for murder, a global conspiracy, and a killer on the loose at 30,000ft. Fasten your seatbelts for new thriller Red Eye

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A packed departure lounge at Stansted Airport, and a dishevelled man jumps on a chair and shouts to the startled crowds, ‘Help me! I’m being deported to China for a crime I didn’t commit.’ 

Passengers start phoning for the police before armed officers pounce on the man, handcuff him and bundle him off as he continues to plead his innocence.

This disturbing scene actually happened last year in front of astonished real-life travellers, except it turned out they’d all been unwitting extras in exciting new ITVX thriller Red Eye. 

Eagle-eyed TV fans among them might have recognised the panicked man as Richard Armitage, star of Netflix hits Fool Me Once and Stay Close, and realised that one of the officers in charge was Crazy Rich Asians’ Jing Lusi.

Richard chuckles at his memories of that day. ‘It was terrifying in a way,’ he says. ‘You have to be careful not to give people a heart attack or traumatise them. Apparently they were running into WH Smith saying, “You’ve got to call the police!” 

Richard Armitage plays Dr Matthew Nolan while Jing Lusi plays detective Hana Li

'But you only get a couple of chances at it before people start to realise you’re filming. When I watched it back weeks later my heart was still thumping because I remembered that feeling beforehand, knowing I couldn’t mess this up.’

The scene is just one of dozens of nerve-jangling moments in the first episode of the six-part thriller in which Richard plays Dr Matthew Nolan, a British surgeon who’s arrested at Heathrow (Stansted was standing in) after returning from a medical conference in China. 

He had come frighteningly close to dying in a car crash in Beijing before boarding his flight, and the Chinese authorities are insisting on his immediate arrest and extradition because they claim a female passenger died in his car. Nolan insists he was alone.

London detective Hana Li (Jing Lusi) has been assigned to escort Nolan back to Beijing straight away on an overnight flight, but when passengers start dying on board she realises Nolan’s life is in danger and an international conspiracy is afoot.

Red Eye was written by Peter A Dowling, who knows about nerve-shredding plane journeys having created the successful 2005 movie Flightplan starring Jodie Foster, about a girl who goes missing on a transatlantic flight. 

Peter had then written a submarine-based thriller for ITV but that got cancelled when BBC1 pipped them to the post with 2021’s Vigil, so ITV and Peter moved their drama to the skies.

‘Red Eye is like a contemporary Agatha Christie in that you’re trapped in a contained location and people are dying,’ says Peter, a Brit who lives in the US. 

‘You’ll be thinking, “How can somebody get away with this?” In that environment the killer must still be there. You know that if you want to catch the killer, you have until the plane lands… so the clock is ticking.’ 

Jing Lusi and Richard Armitage, along with the rest of the cast, filmed for six weeks in a static plane in a studio 

He updated his 2005 research about hidden nooks in jumbo jets where a killer might hide. Boeing planes now have sections next to the luggage hold that can be reconfigured as crew quarters, he explains. 

‘There’s this container wall and the next thing is where all the bags are. So if you can get through there, you’ve got the run of the plane.’

A subplot explores Hana’s reluctance to return to China, where she was born and endured a traumatic childhood. 

Hana also has a difficult relationship with her UK-born half-sister Jess (Jemma Moore), a rookie reporter exploiting her relationship with her sibling for juicy stories.

The actors filmed for six weeks in a static plane in a studio, which sounds claustrophobic but Richard says was a blast, especially when the camera operators had to simulate severe turbulence. 

‘There was a thing called the “turbulence twerk” that the camera operator would start doing to make the camera shake,’ he recalls. ‘Jing and I would sit there trying not to laugh.’

Richard consulted a medic to ensure his doctoring skills looked authentic on the plane. ‘I wanted to make sure we were using the defibrillator correctly,’ he says. 

‘I was filming with a real person, so couldn’t do CPR on him because I didn’t want to break his ribs, but I wanted it to be as authentic as possible. Now I think I’d be able to step in in a real mid-air emergency and say, “I know exactly what to do and can use that defibrillator!”’

Viewers might need one too as they fasten their seatbelts for this heart-racing thriller full of turbulence. It’s going to be a bumpy flight.

Revealed: Five more sky-high thrillers 

Departure (Sky/Now)

The Good Wife’s Archie Panjabi (pictured) plays investigator Kendra Malley in Departure

When Flight 716 disappears over the Atlantic with 256 people on board, investigator Kendra Malley (The Good Wife’s Archie Panjabi) is put on the case. Are terrorists responsible? And why is there only one survivor? Watch for Panjabi’s compelling performance and Christopher Plummer’s final on-screen appearance before his death in 2021.

Hijack (Apple TV+)

Idris Elba (pictured) plays unflappable business negotiator Sam Nelson in Hijack

Idris Elba’s charisma carries this turbulent seven-part series, which has an enjoyably outlandish premise: a seven-hour flight from Dubai to London is taken over by five gun-wielding hijackers. The drama unfolds in real time as unflappable business negotiator Sam Nelson (Elba) uses all his guile to try to regain control of the plane. Buckle up!

Into The Night (Netflix)

It’s best to suspend your disbelief when watching this Belgian sci-fi thriller in which passengers on a flight from Brussels are some of the only survivors of an apocalyptic event in which people are killed by exposure to sunlight. Those onboard the plane must fly west to avoid the sun – can they reach safety before their fuel runs out?

The Flight Attendant (Sky/Now)

Cassie, played by Kaley Cuoco (pictured), is a chaotic air steward with a drink problem in The Flight Attendant 

Kaley Cuoco is charming as Cassie, a chaotic air steward with a drink problem, in this stylish mystery. When a hungover Cassie wakes up next to the dead body of a first-class passenger she’d been flirting with, she has no idea what happened. Did she murder him?

Manifest (Netflix, Sky/Now)

A soapy but bingeable supernatural series about an airliner that lands five years after it took off – although the passengers think they’ve been in the air for three hours. Can they return to normal life?

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Red Eye, Sunday, 9pm, ITV1 and ITVX.