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When David Benioff and DB Weiss made Game Of Thrones, they took a hugely complicated, relatively niche literary world and turned it into a global TV success.

Now the pair are trying to do the same for the Chinese novel The Three-body Problem, which tells a strikingly unusual tale of alien invasion across three settings. First is the China of the Cultural Revolution in the 1960s, when humans contact an alien race; second is a mysterious virtual reality game that presents its players with a tough problem; and last is the present day, when humanity learns the aliens are on their way. The beauty of the book is in how genuinely alien these invaders feel and in the cleverness of its scientific ideas, but it’s not an easy read.

John Bradley (above right), who played Samwell Tarley in Game Of Thrones and in this series is jokey scientist Jack Rooney – one of five boffins dealing with the alien problem – wondered how Benioff and Weiss were going to make it accessible: ‘I just couldn’t see how they were going to do it.’

It soon became clearer when he read the scripts, which set the present-day action in Oxford rather than China, and made most of the characters English rather than Chinese-speaking. On top of this, Bradley’s character was written to be very much like him, which lends a natural feel to the

acting: ‘We both grew up in Wythenshawe in Manchester – he’s a Northern English boy from a working-class background.’

Jack and the other four scientists (dubbed the ‘Oxford Five’) set about dealing with the alien threat, but also spend a lot of time bickering, wondering if they’re in love with each other and even discussing their favourite crisps. It’s these very human relationships that make the show so easy to watch, but it wasn’t easy to make. Filming largely in England but also in the US and Spain, the team behind it – many of whom also worked on Thrones – had to re-create not just the China of the 1960s for the flashbacks but also, for the epic VR game, the times of the Chinese Shang dynasty, Tudor England and more.

It’s in those latter moments that 3 Body Problem may briefly remind you of Game Of Thrones, but this is a very different and arguably even more ambitious show, and came withabudgettomatch– reportedly costing close to £16 million an episode, more even than the HBO fantasy series. And you can certainly see that money on screen.

The scientists set about dealing with the alien threat, but also bicker and wonder if they’re in love with each other