The Reich Stuff

Rufus Sewell on playing a troubled high-ranking Nazi in amazon sci-fi thriller The Man in the High Castle

- Richard Mcclure

NEW DRAMA

The man in the High Castle

Available from Friday 5 October, Amazon Prime Video

When the action signed off at the end of season two of The Man in the High Castle, the fate of the USA was hanging in the balance.

The addictive Amazon Prime drama, which is based on the novel by Philip K Dick, explores what might have happened if the Allies had lost World War Two. And last season saw growing tensions between Germany and Japan, who had initially decided to carve up the USA between them following their victory in 1945.

As the alternate-history series, set in the 1960s, returns for a third run, Obergruppenführer John Smith (Rufus Sewell) remains at the heart of the action, and finds himself lauded by his Nazi Party colleagues after uncovering the high-ranking traitors who killed Adolf Hitler in season two.

However, there are dark clouds on the horizon for Smith, who switched his support to the Nazis after serving in the US military during the war.

As he finds himself with new political opponents who are plotting against him, including J Edgar Hoover (William Forsythe), Smith and his wife, Helen (Chelah Horsdal), also struggle with the aftermath of son Thomas’ death after the incurably ill teenager turned himself in to be euthanised by Nazi authorities.