TV Review. BBC1 SAS Rogue Heroes: forget the explosions, the fist fights and the testorone fuelled action. There’s only one reason to watch SAS Rogues Heroes and that’s Eve Mansour’s wardrobe of stylish outfits.
While the chaps perspire and moan about the heat in the Sahara Desert, Eve remains cool, crisp and chic. It’s as if she has stepped out of an air conditioned mobile film unit – which she probably has.
Played by Sofia Boutella her outfits upstage the Karki clad heroes in Steven Knight’s gung-ho dramatisation of the birth of the elite group of troops.
Unlike many of the characters in the guns blazing series Eve is a fictional French spy although the producers assure us that Cairo was awash with Free French spies – some of them women.
Eve Mansour is the deputy head of French intelligence in Cairo under General de Gaulle’s command and spends much of her time seducing Dominic West to find out what the Rogue Heroes are up to.
Out and about she wears long baggy high waisted pants in either mustard or turquoise with a belt often with a large ornate buckle detail mirrored with a similar but smaller broach securing her slim fitting cream blouse.
These trousers were very popular in the late 1930s and 1940s as Hollywood actresses showcased leisure clothing in fashion spreads in magazines.
Her ivory slim line sleeveless backless waisted full length evening gowns for the night club scenes have wide straps in the style of Vivien Leigh in the role of Emma, Lady Hamilton, in the 1941 film, That Hamilton Woman, designed by René Huber. Low back gowns were popular in the 1930s and considering the heat of Egypt must have been comfortable.
Although I enjoyed the bangs and bumps as the chaps created merry hell in the desert it was the costumes of created for Eve by designer Rachel Walsh who produced the most eye-catching aspect of the series.
Harry Mottram
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