John le Carré's masterpiece, adapted for the BBC in 1979, is a perfect snapshot of Britain in decline, managing its post-imperial malaise in a changing world
It’s one of the greatest TV programmes ever made. Would love to read more of what you have to say about other characters, so please do another post! It’s hard to find fault with anyone in this cast. I particularly liked Bernard Hepton as the trying much too hard outsider, Esterhase and Joss Ackland puts in a marvellously messy, sweaty turn as Jerry Westerby. You can smell the alcohol and curry fumes just watching him. Geoffrey Burgon’s arrangement of Nunc dimmittis at the end is perfect too, so melancholic and gets me every time. It’s peerless. Thank you for an excellent read.
That’s very kind. Bernard Hepton is possibly (but it’s tough) my favourite person in it; I had a colleague in the House of Commons with whom I would often exchange phrases like “Why pick on the little people, George?” And yes, you’re right, it’s that pitch-perfect trying-too-hard of the immaculate, Anglophile Hungarian Toby. As Guillam says, “Toby spoke no known language perfectly, but he spoke them all”. Is he a bona fide Eszterházy? We’ll never know, and that’s the point, a summation of his character. Hepton’s prissiness and slight rhotacism are beautifully indicative.
Whenever anyone asks me about “my favorite television series,” I start with this and some American television from the 50s. And I’m met with incredulity. Because the general idea is that television is supposedly so vastly superior now that anything made before 2005 or so should be inadmissible, or something like that. This relates to your point about the complaint that “not enough happens.” The common complaint would be that the series is “slowly paced.” But the storytelling is grounded in little turns of behavior (I recall the opening wordless sequence at the circus, when everyone shows up for work one by one). When I think of the series, I think of Guinness settling into his chair to adjust his glasses, urging Tarr to begin his story; Prideaux making his way through a checkpoint in Czechoslovakia; the wasted landscape you include in your excellent piece. The difference with the movie adaptation is instructive, in particular the difference between Guinness and Gary Oldman. Guinness is all nuance. Oldman, who I often admire, gives one of the hammiest and most mannered pieces of “underplaying” I’ve ever seen. But in fairness, a performance like Guinness’ would not be possible in the film, which is constructed to move swiftly and in instantly comprehensible blocks.
I think Arthur Hopcroft did a pretty remarkable job of adapting the novel. So did the director, John Irvin. That series is real filmmaking.
Some of the best and most pivotal scenes in Tinker Tailor are without dialogue. Guinness was always brilliant (and hugely versatile: see, most obviously, Kind Hearts and Coronets) but his George Smiley is mesmerising.
One further point, the middle book of the Karla Trilogy - The Honourable Schoolboy - is neglected. Its got Gerry Westerby, Connie Sach's &Doc di Salis an equally strange China-watcher; meetings-as-combat etc. I think it was never filmed as, set in Hong Kong and IndoChina, it was too expensive. I might be made now, but who would believe a China that was closed to the world and impoverished?
Truly superb account. I would like modestly to add that Ian Bannen gives an intense, seething performance that captures an existential turmoil that is institutional, political, and ultimately personal because it is Haydon, his closest friend, who not only betrayed the Circus, but also him. In this world, betrayal runs very, very deep.
Smiley’s People is , I think , superior. Brilliant plot that unwinds like a pulled thread (starting from a negative of a blackmail photo to the forced defection of Karla, with perfect logic).
I would put in a fair word for Smileys People, particularly for the many betrayed and sidelined Baltic and East Europeans in the story, whose belief in the moral probity of the British has been tested to destruction, yet they hope....
Yes, I rewatch often, and the Jim Prideaux story line is the most exquisitely painful, especially as seen through the eyes of the child "Rhino" (and the book gives this even greater power). One of those pieces of British (English) art that matches Shakespeare. And if you want to explain the decline of the UK from the moral heroism of WW2 to the cynical politics of the 80s...........
Mendel. Smileys retired SB man. He features and was played superbly by George Sewell. I felt a flicker of acknowledgement. One old Branch man to another.
An excellent read, thank you very much! Having read the trilogy twice through and watched the series any number of times, I like all your backstory details here. Also that you've caught the coiled anger of Guillam-Jayston so perfectly; in the presence of other powerhouse performances he can be unfairly overlooked. I will recommend the film only to those long steeped in the minutia of the original material. The film def. has some casting mistakes but that Christmas party scene almost makes up for it; also prefer Tom Hardy's Rickie Tarr but this may need further discussion over pints :-)
It’s one of the greatest TV programmes ever made. Would love to read more of what you have to say about other characters, so please do another post! It’s hard to find fault with anyone in this cast. I particularly liked Bernard Hepton as the trying much too hard outsider, Esterhase and Joss Ackland puts in a marvellously messy, sweaty turn as Jerry Westerby. You can smell the alcohol and curry fumes just watching him. Geoffrey Burgon’s arrangement of Nunc dimmittis at the end is perfect too, so melancholic and gets me every time. It’s peerless. Thank you for an excellent read.
That’s very kind. Bernard Hepton is possibly (but it’s tough) my favourite person in it; I had a colleague in the House of Commons with whom I would often exchange phrases like “Why pick on the little people, George?” And yes, you’re right, it’s that pitch-perfect trying-too-hard of the immaculate, Anglophile Hungarian Toby. As Guillam says, “Toby spoke no known language perfectly, but he spoke them all”. Is he a bona fide Eszterházy? We’ll never know, and that’s the point, a summation of his character. Hepton’s prissiness and slight rhotacism are beautifully indicative.
Very good.
Whenever anyone asks me about “my favorite television series,” I start with this and some American television from the 50s. And I’m met with incredulity. Because the general idea is that television is supposedly so vastly superior now that anything made before 2005 or so should be inadmissible, or something like that. This relates to your point about the complaint that “not enough happens.” The common complaint would be that the series is “slowly paced.” But the storytelling is grounded in little turns of behavior (I recall the opening wordless sequence at the circus, when everyone shows up for work one by one). When I think of the series, I think of Guinness settling into his chair to adjust his glasses, urging Tarr to begin his story; Prideaux making his way through a checkpoint in Czechoslovakia; the wasted landscape you include in your excellent piece. The difference with the movie adaptation is instructive, in particular the difference between Guinness and Gary Oldman. Guinness is all nuance. Oldman, who I often admire, gives one of the hammiest and most mannered pieces of “underplaying” I’ve ever seen. But in fairness, a performance like Guinness’ would not be possible in the film, which is constructed to move swiftly and in instantly comprehensible blocks.
I think Arthur Hopcroft did a pretty remarkable job of adapting the novel. So did the director, John Irvin. That series is real filmmaking.
Some of the best and most pivotal scenes in Tinker Tailor are without dialogue. Guinness was always brilliant (and hugely versatile: see, most obviously, Kind Hearts and Coronets) but his George Smiley is mesmerising.
One further point, the middle book of the Karla Trilogy - The Honourable Schoolboy - is neglected. Its got Gerry Westerby, Connie Sach's &Doc di Salis an equally strange China-watcher; meetings-as-combat etc. I think it was never filmed as, set in Hong Kong and IndoChina, it was too expensive. I might be made now, but who would believe a China that was closed to the world and impoverished?
Truly superb account. I would like modestly to add that Ian Bannen gives an intense, seething performance that captures an existential turmoil that is institutional, political, and ultimately personal because it is Haydon, his closest friend, who not only betrayed the Circus, but also him. In this world, betrayal runs very, very deep.
Smiley’s People is , I think , superior. Brilliant plot that unwinds like a pulled thread (starting from a negative of a blackmail photo to the forced defection of Karla, with perfect logic).
I would put in a fair word for Smileys People, particularly for the many betrayed and sidelined Baltic and East Europeans in the story, whose belief in the moral probity of the British has been tested to destruction, yet they hope....
Yes, I rewatch often, and the Jim Prideaux story line is the most exquisitely painful, especially as seen through the eyes of the child "Rhino" (and the book gives this even greater power). One of those pieces of British (English) art that matches Shakespeare. And if you want to explain the decline of the UK from the moral heroism of WW2 to the cynical politics of the 80s...........
Mendel. Smileys retired SB man. He features and was played superbly by George Sewell. I felt a flicker of acknowledgement. One old Branch man to another.
An excellent read, thank you very much! Having read the trilogy twice through and watched the series any number of times, I like all your backstory details here. Also that you've caught the coiled anger of Guillam-Jayston so perfectly; in the presence of other powerhouse performances he can be unfairly overlooked. I will recommend the film only to those long steeped in the minutia of the original material. The film def. has some casting mistakes but that Christmas party scene almost makes up for it; also prefer Tom Hardy's Rickie Tarr but this may need further discussion over pints :-)