It was in a market square in the Colombian city of Cartagena when Georgi Banks-Davies wondered if she had bitten off more than she could chew.

The director of The Night Manager’s second series was shooting a scene in the bustling location, with just a few minutes to capture the action.

Her lead actors, Tom Hiddleston, who returns as the traumatised spy Jonathan Pine, and Diego Calva, his new nemesis, had to walk among market-goers who at first were peering down the camera lens. “We didn’t have control,” she says. “And I only had two minutes to get the shot.”

Tensions rose as time ticked away. Fortunately, an industrious first assistant director addressed the crowd in Spanish and they managed to get the shot, with 400 Colombian extras all playing their part. It was a bit of brinkmanship that le Carré’s own George Smiley would have been proud of.

The result was spectacular and typical of the modern era of le Carré adaptations, which began with The Night Manager’s first outing in 2016. Globetrotting, sexy and sleek, it was understandably compared to the Bond franchise. Some said it surpassed Bond and took le Carré, known on the small screen for brilliant but bleak 70s and 80s adaptations starring Alec Guinness, into new territory.

For Charlie Higson, the new version of le Carré was ripped straight from the Bond playbook. “Ian Fleming wasn’t downbeat and grubby and grey; it wasn’t people in cafes with steamy windows and Formica tabletop doing grubby deals over a cup of cold tea,” says Higson, who has written several Bond books.

“It’s big and international and glossy and sexy and escapist. I always said that le Carré was a ‘cup of tea writing’ and Bond was ‘cocktail writing’.”

Many cocktails are poured in the new world of The Night Manager as Pine tries to navigate another complex world of international crime, espionage and double-crossing.

There are plenty of glamorous, sun-drenched locations too – this time in Catalonia and Colombia rather than Mallorca, which starred in the first series. The casting is equally starry, with Camila Morrone, Olivia Colman and Indira Varma adding wattage alongside Hiddleston and Calva.

It’s not just the spies that take risks in this new world, which is led by le Carré’s sons Stephen and Simon Cornwell via their Ink Factory production company. The second series is the first adaptation not based on a story crafted by the author. David Farr, who adapted the first series, developed the Pine story.

Simon Cornwell says their approach to post-le Carré le Carré is relatively simple: “If my dad was alive today, how would the stories look in the contemporary world?”

Bond might be the obvious reference people reach for but there’s a much wider palate of influences on display. Banks-Davies, who made her name with the buzzy dramedy I Hate Suzie, compiled a scrapbook of visual references after reading the first two episodes, which are available on New Year’s Day in the UK.

Francis Bacon’s torture portraits feature heavily, and shaped the way Pine’s inner turmoil is visualised. Banks-Davies also found inspiration in the celebrity profiles of Fran Lebowitz, particularly in scenes when Pine starts to craft yet another new persona. Fellini’s 8½ is another touchstone.

She won’t be drawn on more of her cinematic influences but the aerial shots of vehicles winding their way towards the action is reminiscent of Sicario, while the global web of conspiracy and crime recalls Roberto Saviano’s Gomorrah and ZeroZeroZero. There are also hints of the Bourne series and the dangerous worlds Kathryn Bigelow crafts.

When it comes to the question of Bond, Banks-Davies takes the challenge head on. “It’s definitely on the top of my bucket list to be the first woman who directs a Bond movie,” says Banks-Davies, whose predecessor Susanne Bier was linked to the franchise after directing the first series of The Night Manager.

Some argued series one was a glorified Bond audition for Hiddleston, but Cornwell agrees with those who said it was the start of a new “radical” reframing of le Carré and he cautions those who think the series is all about glamour.

“I don’t think we’re as fanciful as Bond,” says Cornwell, whose father referred to 007 as a “consumer goods hero”. “Underneath that very sexy surface are things that are dark and difficult and painful,” he said. “Our storytelling is very grounded in reality and that brings you very much back to the real world in a way that I think Bond never does.”

The Night Manager series two is part of an ever-expanding le Carré universe. The Spy Who Came in from the Cold is currently on in the West End as a stage play, while the classic le Carré novel is also being developed into a BBC series called Legacy of Spies.

Cornwell says the hope is the entire “Smiley sequence” – the novels revolving around the world of the spymaster – are adapted for the small screen over the course of a decade. A third series of The Night Manager has already been commissioned.

Whether you like your le Carré served with a cocktail or a cuppa, the espionage writer’s world is here to stay.