The Complete Smiley: dramatised Le Carré on BBC4extra

[Nick Armstrong]

Over the past week or so, BBC4extra has been rebroadcasting The Complete Smiley - excellent dramatisations starring Simon Russell Beale as a terrific Smiley, and a lot of other great actors esp. Maggie Steed as Connie Sachs

Obviously, Tinker Tailor &c and Smiley's People are there, but also the lesser known earlier Murder of Quality and Call for the Dead, plus The Looking Glass War, Spy Who Came In From The Cold and one that's totally unknown to me, The Secret Pilgrim. Good to be able to complete my collection from previous transmissions in 2010 and before...

I've particularly enjoyed The Honourable Schoolboy, with Hugh Bonneville perfectly cast as Jerry Westerby - dramatisation by Stillhomewardbound's bro Shaun (who also did a number of the others)

So now they're around for a further 30 days on iPlayer... Great listening on these dark grey summer evenings

[Richard Tarleton]

Thanks for flagging this Cali - I've just finished a Smiley re-read, as it happens. The Secret Pilgrim (1991) is a Smiley valedictory - told in the first person by Ned (who appeared in the previous book The Russia House as the controller of erratic spy Barley Blair). Ned is reflecting on his own career, his reminiscences prompted by a final appearance of Smiley as after-dinner speaker at the passing-out dinner for the new entry at Sarratt, the country house spy training school which appears throughout the books (usually as the place where people are taken to be interrogated or debriefed). It's a series of short stories, quite unlike the other books, with Smiley's philosophizing on their trade as a unifying theme - and positively Smiley's last appearance. It was a chance for Le Carré to use material discarded or not used in earlier books, its provisional title, with a nod to Kipling, was Plain Tales from the Circus, the formula of linked short stories derived from Somerset Maugham's Ashenden.

[antongould]

Just working my way through these at the moment Rumpole and they are a real joy ... like you I was not aware of the Secret Pilgrim and thanks to Richard for the detail .... I have always had a soft spot for A Murder of Quality.

[Nick Armstrong]

I have always had a soft spot for A Murder of Quality.

I have yet to discover all of its Qualities - but I started to do so recently on a long drive back from France, because in the in-car iPod is the unabridged audio book read by Michael Jayston ('Peter Guillam' in the BBC TV adaptations, of course) as well as, now, the radio dramatisation. I was certainly hooked by the opening.

[Richard Tarleton]

I have yet to discover all of its Qualities - but I started to do so recently on a long drive back from France, because in the in-car iPod is the unabridged audio book read by Michael Jayston ('Peter Guillam' in the BBC TV adaptations, of course) as well as, now, the radio dramatisation. I was certainly hooked by the opening.

Foul deeds at an English public school - the physical setting is based on Sherborne (Dorset) where JLC was a pupil, the school set up is based on Eton where he taught, briefly.

Michael Jayston - marvellous voice

[vinteuil]

... I really like the Smiley novels in the le Carré œuvre. Less keen on his later stuff.

However, I think that many who worked in MI6 / SIS at that time wd fundamentally disagree with his take on their work. He had a relatively restricted knowledge of what was happening. It wasn't all a grey area of uncertain loyalties with an ultimate conclusion that we were just as compromised as the opposition. There were goodies and baddies in the Cold War; for the most part we were not the baddies.




.

[mercia]

The Complete Smiley

bit confused. some episodes were only broadcast in the middle of the night, and I can't find The Secret Pilgrim in that link

[antongould]

bit confused. some episodes were only broadcast in the middle of the night, and I can't find The Secret Pilgrim in that link

Middle of the night indeed mercs - the 3 episodes of the Secret Pilgrim were broadcast 03.00 to 06.00 on Saturday morning ... But you were probably up and about ......

[antongould]

Middle of the night indeed mercs - the 3 episodes of the Secret Pilgrim were broadcast 03.00 to 06.00 on Saturday morning ... But you were probably up and about ......

Scrub that - it was Smiley's People I will find the Pilgrims .... Apologies ....

[antongould]

Scrub that - it was Smiley's People I will find the Pilgrims .... Apologies ....

Ok then 03.00 to 06.00 this morning .......

[mercia]

thank you very much

[Flay]

It doesn't matter when they were broadcast providing we can listen again.

These programmes were brilliant. Thanks for the heads-up, Calibs! I had recorded some before and have enjoyed repeated istenings, altough was missing an episode of Schoolboy so will be able to catch up. I haven't heard Murder of Quality and Call for the Dead so look forward to those!

[Nick Armstrong]

It doesn't matter when they were broadcast providing we can listen again.

These programmes were brilliant. Thanks for the heads-up, Calibs! I had recorded some before and have enjoyed repeated istenings, altough was missing an episode of Schoolboy so will be able to catch up. I haven't heard Murder of Quality and Call for the Dead so look forward to those!

How strange! I was also missing an episode of Honourable Schoolboy - made good this week! I thought I was also missing the third episode of Looking Glass War, but I now realise it has only two episodes

[antongould]

Just reached the end this morning ..... absolutely wonderful IMVVHO and I felt Secret Pilgrim with its limited GS was a worthwhile ending .... one never knows Le Carre may return to the Great Man .....

[Richard Tarleton]

Just reached the end this morning ..... absolutely wonderful IMVVHO and I felt Secret Pilgrim with its limited GS was a worthwhile ending .... one never knows Le Carre may return to the Great Man .....

Thoughts on p. 600 ( ) of Adam Sisman's biog on why he keeps writing and whether there'll be any more books. In 2015 he abandoned the novel he'd been working on since finishing A Delicate Truth. I believe we await his autobiography. At 85 he'd be forgiven for putting his feet up. And George himself would be well into his nineties by now - he was an active secret agent during WW2.....