Legacy

The trouble with Cold War spy thrillers is that the genre is a minefield of cliches.  Mr. Le Carre has a lot to answer for.  Paula Milne has adapted Alan Judd's novel of the same name into a 90-minute prime-time BBC2 thriller which throws Judd's hero Charles Thoroughgood (based on Judd himself, perhaps?  He shares his army and diplomatic background.) in at the deep end of MI6 during the dark days of 1970s Britain.  He's given the task of 'turning' his old Oxford friend, Russian diplomat Viktor Koslov (Andrew Scott, aka Moriarty), only to find on making contact that Viktor has a card up his own sleeve which calls Charles's bluff in a very personal way.

For fans of 1970s nostalgia there are the cars, the blackouts and the abominable fashions and hairstyles (but only, we note, sported by peripheral characters: MI6 weren't so undercover that they grew their hair or wore kipper ties, clearly) and there's also the inevitable love interest, in the form of unhappily married fellow spy Anna March (Romola Garai who, let's face it, adds class to everything she appears in).

Exploring his own father's alleged betrayal, his feelings for Anna and his assignment with Viktor via the latter's prostitute lover Eva (Olivia Grant, slightly miscast as a 24-year-old), Charles ploughs a leisurely furrow accompanied by a jerkily zooming camera which had the effect of distracting from the dialogue.  Is this lack of subtlety in filming in vogue?  We hope it passes.  Luckily for him and us, Charles has solid support from Simon Russell Beale as senior operative Hookey.  SRB does not grace our small screens often, and his every appearance is a memorable event.  When he is allied to Geraldine James as stalwart Martha, there's no switching off.

Perfectly good of its kind, but not landmark television in the way of, say, 'Tinker Tailor...' or 'Smiley...'.  Perhaps it's the fact that the novel was published in 2012 and this was made in the same year.  Le Carre's stories were, after all, just about contemporary to the Cold War, albeit at a late stage, and there was, if not a grubbiness, then at least a seediness to proceedings.  In the UK we are used to equating the 1970s with the down-at-heel, which is maybe why James Bond didn't work so well in that decade (and he was mostly abroad, and let's not mention Roger Moore).  Glamour, so long associated with espionage, was largely absent from the average Briton's shores, having fled with the 60s and only returning, to a degree, with the garish 80s.  Somehow these pretty young things in their stylish clothes with their cool attitudes seem at odds with both the era and the rather workaday image we now have of the security services.  Beautifully moody shots of rainy alleys and gloomy seasides add style, but not substance.

The Hollow Crown

The Extremely Light Crown would be a more fitting title.  From the way it's picked up one-handed, rolled around and generally bandied about, it must be made of sprayed aluminium.  Great for the actors, but not so wonderful for the kings, we would think, especially not Richard, whose girlish vanity undid him in the first of these Shakespearean history play adaptations.

We've seen them all before, but are not scholars of the texts, so the fact that they've been chopped up and about for the screen didn't bother us in the way it might, conceivably, to purists.  To us, they were outstanding.  The visuals were gorgeous, from lighting and costume to the choice of interior and exterior locations (though wouldn't the castles have been a bit less bare?).  Actors must have been fighting each other as fiercely as they do onscreen to be cast.  Accusations that the BBC is behind the times can be quashed here and now: yes, this is what they do best, but they have taken this seriously enough to trounce their own previous productions of these plays.  They are as freed from the stage as it's possible for Shakespeare to be, and the text rings out as clearly as the lyrical, metred lines allow.

Fabulous.

Spooks *spoilers*

We try, but we haven’t the time or the stamina to watch everything, nor to stick to things that no longer surprise and/or please.  Ali was the last to leave, in this case, but she didn’t even see out Adam’s tenure, so this was a trip down memory lane purely for the love of the blog.

‘Spooks’ began in the wake of 9/11 as an exciting, plot-driven series for a whole new, paranoid world.  MI5 had never looked so good nor had it had so many eager recruits.  The writing was strong, the humour was weak, and the latter was what wore us out.  Just how many hours of po-faced tension can one stand?  Browsing the internet for a crash course in what we’d missed, we’ve sort of plugged the gaps: Ros, Jo, Lucas and the ever-rising star Ruth.  Harry still frowning on proceedings.  All set for the last ever series.


Deja vu is a double-edged sword.  Harry!  Ruth!  Offices with acres of glass and screens!  We could go on.  In fact, we can't resist it: Russians!  CIA chiefs!  Fat-cat diplomats!  Lines like, "Now is the time to make our move"!  Explosions!  And all in the first twenty minutes.  It's like eating a tub of what used to be your favourite ice-cream and remembering that you stopped eating it because the last time it made you sick.


Which isn't to deny that what 'Spooks' does, it does well.  It's well-paced, slick and involving.  The rest of the cast could be anyone.  Simon Russell Beale (forever Powell's Widmerpool), Lara Pulver, Max Brown et al have taken up the mantles of Robert Glenister, Tim McInnerny, Keeley Hawes, Hermione Norris, Matthew Macfadyen, David Oyelowo, Rupert Penry Jones and Richard Armitage.  The list reads like several seasons of impressive rep casts at Stratford, playing the same parts.  After nine previous series, there would have to be bona fide vampires and aliens to surprise the audience, so finality is probably a good move.  (As an irregular viewer, Ali was still able to predict Erin's motherhood and Harry's fatherhood.)


Meanwhile... Harry goes into a library - not just any old library, an old-fashioned romantic one (the London Library?).  He's followed by at least two people and he knows it.  He pulls a folded note from the spine of a book.  The ragged handwriting reads, "We have to meet.  Tourmaline is in danger.  Sharecropper."  It's the sort of spy caper to have you wriggling on your cushions and chewing the wasabi popcorn.  And never mind those elegant little Bond shooters, these guns are huge.   What's not to love?