Has Peaky star Joe got the specs appeal to play Michael Caine?
IT WAS an instantly striking look that helped make a star of Sir Michael Caine and established a 1960s fashion trend that endures to this day.
Now Peaky Blinders star Joe Cole is stepping into the beige raincoat and thick-rimmed glasses of Harry Palmer as he revives Len Deighton’s Cold War spy for a TV remake of The Ipcress File.
As these pictures from the set show, the costume department has worked overtime to get the famous look just right. Meanwhile, Cole’s co-star Lucy Boynton – recently seen in Freddie Mercury biopic Bohemian Rhapsody – also perfects the 1960s look with a stylish blue suit worthy of Jackie Kennedy in her role as his assistant Jean.
Sir Michael starred in a trio of Harry Palmer movies from 1965 to 1967, and his distinctive specs even influenced the Mike Myers spoof Austin Powers.
For the six-part ITV series, also starring The Night Manager’s Tom Hollander as spymaster Major Dalby, Liverpool has been transformed into 1960s London as Palmer investigates the kidnapping of British nuclear scientists. Cole, 32, who shot to fame as John Selby in
Peaky Blinders, is a Londoner like Caine. However, he was born in affluent Kingston-upon-Thames as opposed to industrial Rotherhithe, where
Sir Michael entered the world as Maurice Micklewhite 88 years ago.
Deighton went on to write several Harry Palmer thrillers – although the spy was never named in the books – giving producers scope for further series.