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gervase_fenIf you've been wondering what the 1978 equivalent of Spooks is (I know I have been), it's The Sandbaggers, which I've been watching courtesy of Amazon's DVD rental service. It's got the cynicism of Callan, the tradecraft of Tinker, Tailor... , the ambitious Yorkshire moors-standing-in-as-Russian-steppe locations of an ITC action adventure, and the internecine politicking of Yes, Minister.
Roy Marsden is suitably commanding, authoritative and terse as Burnside, the SIS Deputy Director, and Richard Vernon is of course dream casting as 'C'. Ian McIntosh, the writer-creator, has a gift for plots that unfold in unusual directions, and dialogue that creates a convincing world of cut outs, station chiefs, political crises and bureaucracy. (The Ops Room crisis scenes are some of the best that I've seen outside of The West Wing.) I particularly liked 'C' ordering Burnside to resolve something by 'close of play', a weaselly phrase I've become quite familiar with recently. (There's usually absolutely nothing playful or sportmanslike in a task to be resolved by 'close of play'.) But it's not all spook gobbledegook : McIntosh can come up with a line like "Hard to realise your tomorrows can be so different from your yesterdays" that stays in the mind.
Because I knew absolutely nothing about the series, the high attrition rate that affects the Sandbaggers themselves took me by the surprise - none of them have a close encounter with a deep fat fryer, but Burnside is complicit in the deaths of at least two of them.
One of the incidental pleasures of watching the first series (as with most TV drama of this period) is the opportunity to spot Doctor Who guest actors before the end credits roll. There's Professor Stahlman as the head of the Norwegian Secret Service in the first episode, and better still, Nyder as an Arab prince being seduced (!) by Diane Keen. But best of all is the recurring starring role for Jerome Willis as Roy Marsden's slightly less-than-capable superior, Peele. He looks so little changed from his appearance in The Green Death that it's almost as if he survived the events at Llanfairfach and, with his personality completely re-engineered by BOSS, got himself a nice job high up in the civil service.
Roy Marsden is suitably commanding, authoritative and terse as Burnside, the SIS Deputy Director, and Richard Vernon is of course dream casting as 'C'. Ian McIntosh, the writer-creator, has a gift for plots that unfold in unusual directions, and dialogue that creates a convincing world of cut outs, station chiefs, political crises and bureaucracy. (The Ops Room crisis scenes are some of the best that I've seen outside of The West Wing.) I particularly liked 'C' ordering Burnside to resolve something by 'close of play', a weaselly phrase I've become quite familiar with recently. (There's usually absolutely nothing playful or sportmanslike in a task to be resolved by 'close of play'.) But it's not all spook gobbledegook : McIntosh can come up with a line like "Hard to realise your tomorrows can be so different from your yesterdays" that stays in the mind.
Because I knew absolutely nothing about the series, the high attrition rate that affects the Sandbaggers themselves took me by the surprise - none of them have a close encounter with a deep fat fryer, but Burnside is complicit in the deaths of at least two of them.
One of the incidental pleasures of watching the first series (as with most TV drama of this period) is the opportunity to spot Doctor Who guest actors before the end credits roll. There's Professor Stahlman as the head of the Norwegian Secret Service in the first episode, and better still, Nyder as an Arab prince being seduced (!) by Diane Keen. But best of all is the recurring starring role for Jerome Willis as Roy Marsden's slightly less-than-capable superior, Peele. He looks so little changed from his appearance in The Green Death that it's almost as if he survived the events at Llanfairfach and, with his personality completely re-engineered by BOSS, got himself a nice job high up in the civil service.
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Date: 2008-02-04 12:04 am (UTC)I still have to see Jerome Willis's performance in Winstanley, Kevin Brownlow's low-budget epic about the Levellers, which has been on my shelves for years.
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Date: 2008-02-26 01:03 am (UTC)But the Prince is so alluring! That swarthy tan! That Hitleresque moustache! The fact that he goes bowling with his sunglasses on!