When talking about The Iris Affair, Neil Cross - the show’s writer and creator had one mission in mind: creating “a fast-moving, sophisticated thriller under brilliant blue skies - something designed to be exciting, intelligent, witty and glamorous in a modern old-fashioned way.”

And now his vision is coming to life in a spectacular way, with Niamh Algar and Tom Hollander leading this cat and mouse chase across the stunning Spanish coast.

Speaking ahead of the show’s launch, creator Neil Cross reveals how he came up with the idea, what to expect from the show, and the big influences on bringing his tale to life.

I was flicking through the channels, and my DVD collection, looking for this precise show I was in the mood to watch. I couldn’t find it. So I wrote it.

Honestly, in one sense I’m not sure it’s “about” anything, really, not in the grand scheme of things. I just wanted to write a fast-moving, sophisticated and exciting thriller with a European setting, a lot of blue sky, the odd sports car and some great clothes. I wanted it to be witty and glamorous in a modern- old-fashioned way, which meant drawing on a lot of things I love.

There’s a lot of Alfred Hitchcock in there, for instance - North by Northwest, or To Catch a Thief. And I love the kind of lush, long-ago adventure series produced by Lew Grade; The Saint, say, or The Persuaders! Shows where the world was a bit heightened, a bit dangerous, yet full of jaunty sports cars and unapologetically glamorous.

Other elements of the story are tremendously indebted to the greatest British television writer who ever lived; Nigel Kneale. Most famously in Quatermass, Kneale explored the kind of ideas you might call cosmic horror — the bloodcurdling notion that humanity is utterly insignificant in the face of vast, ancient forces that lie beyond our comprehension.

It’s definitely contemporary — but it’s not designed to feel topical, like one of those shows that’s been “ripped from the headlines”. Even if I’d wanted it be that, the present now moves much too fast for something as slow-to-produce as a TV drama to keep pace with it. In some ways it’s the opposite.

Elements of The Iris Affair belong to the same tradition as Prometheus, or Frankenstein, or Oppenheimer — narratives rooted in our fear of the unknown, and our paradoxical compulsion to pursue knowledge that might destroy us. These themes are as old as the hills… which hopefully makes them timeless rather than timely.

I don’t do much dedicated research. For one thing, I’m much too disorganised. For another, I’ve learned that research is sometimes a form of procrastination brilliantly masquerading as diligence. I just tend to throw in things I’m interested in. This is partly on the basis that if I find something interesting, other people might too.

I do tend to check my facts once I’ve written them into a story, though, and revise them when necessary. Which is quite often: I get things wrong all the time. And I still have immense trouble summarising how a book code works.

How much of what we see and hear is based in fact and how much sci-fi, extrapolation, surmise or conjecture?

I borrowed certain ideas from the theoretical physicists Roger Penrose and Paul Davies that are, strictly speaking, conjecture. But the kind of conjecture that makes me want to sleep with the lights on.

Honestly, I don’t know. But I do know that fear is the enemy of freedom, and in many ways the enemy of a life well lived. Being scared never got anyone anywhere, or assisted in the process of rational decision making.

If we care, we should definitely be attentive; and if there’s something we could do, then we should do it. But if we don’t care, and the outcome is out of our control, we might as well make a Martini, be with people we love, and put on some Bossa Nova.

Caliburn, Sardinia, Rome… The show is filmed in Italy. This is because Italy is one of the most beautiful places in the world, and I’d spent a wildly disproportionate part of my professional life filming in London, in February, at 3am.

The character came first. In the early days I described her as “Bad” Will Hunting. Imagine a more solitary and itinerant version of Matt Damon’s character; one who never put down roots, never fell in love with Minnie Driver, never got to university, and is also Niamh Algar.

Before meeting Cameron, Iris was pretty content living a solitary, somewhat liminal existence: not quite on the margins of society, but not far from it either. Drifting from place to place, and low-paid job to low-paid job. She’s addicted to quizzes because I spend a lot of time watching Only Connect, and feel a certain affinity with the occasionally somewhat awkward people who take part in it.

I feel that, if Iris had just applied to become part of an Only Connect team, her life might’ve turned out very differently. As it is, her rationalist amorality may at times verge on nihilism, but underneath she’s got a keen (if idiosyncratic) sense of right and wrong. Accordingly — from a certain perspective and with a squint of the eye — you might think of her as a modern, amoral Ronin. Not that she’d ever admit it.

Cameron certainly starts out as an antagonist, but he’s never really a bad guy. In many ways he represents the very best of us; he’s an optimist; a believer in the limitless potential of the human race. In youthful, private moments he might’ve once pictured himself as becoming a bit like Tony Stark. However, while Cameron is brilliant, he’s no genius. What he does is find geniuses, and fund them. Not because he wants to exploit their intellectual property, but because he’s excited by big ideas… and because he finds their company exhilarating.

His goal in life, as he puts it, is to help brilliant people do brilliant things. But when we meet him in this story, all that optimism has curdled into the sunk cost- fallacy. In pursuit of high ideals, he’s made some poor choices. And now he owes very bad, very powerful people a great deal of money.

Like all great enemies, Cameron and Iris are perversely fond of each other. Each admires the other for their brilliance, their audacity, their singlemindedness. It’s the kind of enmity that’s almost friendship. It’s Fischer vs. Spassky. Ali vs. Frasier. Hepburn vs. Tracy.

Niamh and Tom work in completely different ways, but one of the great pleasures of working with really, really good actors is that they know when, and how, to surprise you with your own material — thus making you feel like a better writer.

I’m not sure I’ve actually got it in me to be life-affirming. I could probably shoot for deadly serious, but the membrane between “deadly serious” and “self-important” is terrifyingly fragile. I just want the audience to be entertained. Which means I want them to be intrigued, and excited, and thrilled, and sometimes scared.

I want them to spend time in places they’d love to be, with people they’d enjoy spending time with... each of whom seems intent on destroying the other. Interesting that you made the goal of the really bad guys – The Money – something good (saving the girl with Fatal Familial Insomnia).

Essentially because nobody thinks they’re the bad guy. And I was intrigued by the idea that all this villainy is rooted in something as small, and as human as wanting to save the life of a child.