About Intelligence

Created by Nick Mohammed, Intelligence is a workplace comedy set in the UK’s GCHQ—a kind of weedier, geekier version of MI5, where they tackle international and domestic Cyber Crime from a desktop. But when a pompous, maverick NSA agent (David Schwimmer) comes over from the U.S. to join the team, he enlists an inept and tactless computer analyst (Nick Mohammed) in a power grab that threatens to disrupt the team’s ability to combat cyber terrorism.

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The characters

Meet the cast of Intelligence

Jerry Bernstein
Played by: David Schwimmer
Jerry works for the United States National Security Agency but has been placed at GCHQ as part of a new intelligence sharing initiative. A megalomaniac with delusions of grandeur, Jerry prides himself on accepting zero responsibility when things go wrong. A great patriot, he is hugely critical of any country outside the U.S. — possibly because he’s never traveled anywhere except Hawaii, which he’s pretty sure is in the U.S. — and suspicious of all other peoples and languages, of which he speaks none. Trusts his instincts over evidence, and men over women. Ex-military.
Joseph Harries
Played by: Nick Mohammed
Inept and tactless computer analyst. What Joseph does have bags of though, is puppyish enthusiasm even when the forecast at GCHQ looks pretty bleak. Always on the lookout for a new best friend, over the course of the series Jerry and Joseph become a kind of ineffectual double-act with each pretending they have the answer to the other’s problems in both the workplace and over matters of the heart.
Christine Clarke
Played by: Sylvestra Le Touzel
Director of Cyber Security: professional, cold and rather terrifying – and thus the literal embodiment of GCHQ. Christine comes from a long line of women who have fought for Queen and Country and has a continuous power struggle with Jerry. She is hugely resistant to his more maverick approach and her efforts across the series are predominantly to maintain her position at the top and to stop things getting out of hand.
Mary Needham
Played by: Jane Stanness
Mary specialises in cryptanalysis and joined GCHQ over three decades ago but is only now starting to find her voice. Hugely long suffering, Mary balances her work at GCHQ by running the local Brownie group amid a hundred other selfless and thankless tasks, like looking after her belligerent mum. Doesn’t sleep, rarely eats and eternally single... for now.
Quentin O'Higgins
Played by: Ollie Birch
Quentin works in the field of emerging spy technologies and heads up a biometrics department. None of his prototypes ever work, he’s creepy and often stays at GCHQ through the night making the others suspect he doesn’t have a home to go to.
Rupert Fleming
Played by: Colin Salmon
Director of GCHQ. Christine’s boss. A high-flyer, always away on international duties. Oxbridge. Smarmy. Constantly name-dropping. Loves the limelight. And a touch seedy.