Golden spy era stages return to BBC
THE GAME BBC 2, 9pm
A FEW years back, Anna Chapman was one of a number of Russian nationals arrested in New York on suspicion of being part of a spy ring. The arrests – and the glamorous Chapman – attracted extensive publicity, and something about it all got under Toby Whithouse’s skin.
“The story seemed to be beamed straight from the 1970s and I think there were several people from my generation who felt an odd pang of nostalgia.” he says. “We remember when the bogey man wasn’t the suicide bomber or the EDL thug, but glamorous and ruthless Russian spies. It conjured up images of murders by poisontipped umbrellas. We remember the looming spectre of the Soviet East....”
Whithouse has now created The Game, a tense Cold War drama set in London, in 1972 and the miners’ strike. It begins its six-part run tonight, and features a strong cast: Tom Hughes as MI5 agent Joe Lambe, and Brian Cox, Paul Ritter and Victoria Hamilton as his bosses.
The basis for the Game is quickly established: a defecting KGB officer (Marcel Iure ) tells Lambe that the Soviets are about to launch something called Operation Glass involving sleeper agents.
Details are sketchy, the defector says. But he does tell Lambe that “years from now, the story of British and Soviet espionage will be divided into before and after this moment – before and after Operation Glass. They’re going to tear everything down.”
The charismatic head of MI5 (Cox) assembles a secret committee to help protect Britain. As the Soviets awaken sleeper agents to carry out the plot, the new team are faced with an unidentified, invisible threat.
The Game has a claustrophobic, dingy 70s feel to it, which inevitably leads to comparisons with some of John le Carre’s work, but it is a riveting and complex thriller in its own right.
Adds Whithouse: “Aside from being such an important period in the Cold War, I wanted to set it in the 1970s because it meant that a story couldn’t be resolved by use of technology.
“There were no mobile phones, no facial recognition software. They lived or died by their ingenuity, insight and adaptability.”