How a Christmas party inspired Joe Barton to write Netflix hit Black Doves in just six days

Lucy LeesonWed, November 4, 2026 at 10:30 AM UTC

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While most people spend the days between Christmas and New Year indulging in leftover turkey, binge-watching box sets and losing track of time, Joe Barton had other plans back in 2022.

After attending a Christmas party in London days earlier, he came up with an idea for an action-packed spy thriller – which turned out to be Netflix’s Black Doves.

“I had checked into this hotel and there were all these people around me. At the time, I was by myself and I imagined this character, a sort of spy or hitman,” the writer told The Independent ahead of series two.

“Basically I imagined if I was cooler than I am – a sort of spy character walking through all this Christmas frivolity. I just had this basic idea that would be an interesting character and I had been watching some spy shows and I had been interested in doing a bit of espionage stuff.”

Ben Whishaw, Keira Knightley and Sarah Lancashire attend the Black Doves season two launch in London. (PA)

While many writers spend months, even years, developing an idea into a gripping six-part drama, Barton – who penned the BBC’s Giri/Haji and sci-fi thriller The Lazarus Project – needed just six days.

“You always hope, obviously when you write something, that it will connect with people or, well, even just to get made or get read, but it happened so quickly as well,” he said.

“I started writing it on Boxing Day and finished it on New Year’s Day, that little spot between Christmas and New Year.”

After finishing the script, Joe’s manager quickly passed it on to Keira Knightley, who was represented by the same management company. She read it just days later, and before long, the pair were sitting down together discussing the project.

“It all happened really quickly,” Joe recalled. “My head was still spinning, to be honest.”

Callum Devrell-Cameron, Chris Fry, Jane Featherstone, Joe Barton and Kieron Hawkes attend the launch event for season two of Black Doves" at Johnston Roof Terrace & Riverside Room, IET London. (Getty)

Black Doves made its Netflix debut in December 2024 – although it was renewed for a second series before the first had even premiered. The thriller went onto become the streamer’s most-watched series for that month.

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The highly anticipated second series, released on Thursday (5 November), sees Knightley reprise her role as spy-turned-politician’s wife Helen Webb. Still leaking the nation’s secrets to the covert organisation Black Doves, Helen finds herself navigating an increasingly dangerous world following last Christmas’s dramatic events. With her husband, Wallace (Andrew Buchan), on the verge of becoming Prime Minister, the stakes are higher than ever.

By her side is her best friend Sam (Ben Whishaw), a former high-profile hitman whose fortunes have taken a turn for the worse, leaving him drowning his sorrows in Soho bars and taking on low-paying assassination jobs. Helen and Sam’s latest mission brings them face-to-face with familiar friends and foes, forcing them to confront the dark choices and painful sacrifices of their past as they delve deeper into the world of the Black Doves.

Meanwhile, Helen’s mysterious handler, Mrs Reed (Sarah Lancashire), finds herself caught up in a ruthless scheme threatening her position within the organisation.

This time around, the writing process wasn’t as quick as Black Doves’s first outing. “We actually had a bit more time to do it. The first series had gone well and Netflix renewed it before it even came out, which was exciting,” Barton said.

“I was on holiday actually in Italy and in a supermarket when I got a call being like, ‘you need to come home, we’re going again.’

“When I got back, we started writing the second series straight away and we were like ‘Oh my God, what can they do next?’ We hadn't planned a second series, so it was exciting to get back into it and now we're in the process of hopefully getting a third series.”

The relationship between Knightley and Whishaw’s characters has been widely praised as the emotional heart of the series.

“The friendship between them is a kind of creation, but I have always loved the dynamic of the gay man, straight woman relationship,” Barton explained.

“I've got a lot of gay male friends and straight women friends, and I find the dynamic can be really beautiful and powerful and it's usually something that's relegated to gay best friend, but I felt to sort of make it the centrepiece of a story was a really interesting thing, because I just think it's such an interesting and powerful dynamic.”

Black Doves season two is released on Netflix on Thursday, November 5.

Original Article on Source

Source: “AOL Entertainment”