City Square almost became Red Square

FILM MEMORIES: Archivist recalls day Dundee was turned into Russian city for TV drama but reality was just as dramatic

It was the controversial film which brought Communism to Dundee while the world was on the verge of nuclear war.

At a critical part in the Cold War, the Caird Hall was transformed into the Bolshoi Ballet building in Moscow while tons of salt was poured on to City Square by council workers to replicate a Russian winter.

Communist banners celebrating the October Revolution were also put up outside the venue while Dundee High School became a Soviet war memorial secured by military guards.

It was all for the BBC drama An Englishman Abroad which was shown in November 1983 and centred on the British diplomat Guy Burgess, who defected to the USSR in 1951.

The Caird Hall even made it on to the cover of the Radio Times to promote the film, which starred Alan Bates, Coral Browne and Charles Gray who played the arch-villain Blofeld in the James Bond film Diamonds Are Forever.

The drama, which was written by Alan Bennett and directed by John Schlesinger, was broadcast at a time when a war games exercise almost sparked a full-scale nuclear conflict between the east and west.

Memories from 35 years ago have come flooding back to Iain Flett of the Friends of Dundee City Archives who is now making inquiries to find out if it could be shown again in the city.

Mr Flett said: “I remember the council roads department filling City Square with road salt to provide ‘snow’ and then clear it – only for the real thing to fall days later.

“Councillor John Henderson was given a role as a uniformed driver of an official Moskvitch when an access road ran round the perimeter of City Square.

“Worried Dundonians watched the changing of Russian military guards outside Dundee High School which became a Russian war memorial.

“A former warehouse in Exchange Street was the wall where Coral Browne enquired about Burgess.”

The TV play was based on a true incident in 1958 when actress Coral Browne met the spy and defector Guy Burgess in a Moscow theatre.

Dundee auditions were also held for the film although those who took part didn’t experience any Hollywood glamour.

Mr Flett said: “I recall one of the cleaning staff saying that her daughter had been hired as an extra and was not impressed by the BBC’s attention to detail.

“Extras were issued with very uncomfortable scratchy woollen underwear which helped with the depiction of dour Muscovites.”

Alan Bennett was so fascinated by Coral Browne’s anecdote that he adapted it twice, for the BBC in 1983 and for the stage five years later.

The day Dundee’s City Square was transformed into Soviet Moscow for the TV drama An Englishman Abroad with the world almost on the brink of nuclear war in 1983.