The Laughing Prisoner

The Laughing Prisoner is one of the oddest TV programmes that exist. Made by Channel 4 in 1993, it is a strange pastiche of The Prisoner in which Jools Holland resigns from presenting his own programme and is then taken to the Village where he meets Number Two, played by Everybody's Big Gay Boyfriend Sir Stephen Fry. Naturally Number Two wants to know why "Number Seven" resigned.

What follows is a mix of sketches in which Number Two tries to break Number Seven using spoof versions of various Prisoner plots, intercut with light entertainment style music bands playing live in the grounds at Portmeirion (Holland and Fry are also on location there, so this probably features about as much filming in the actual Village as The Prisoner series did), and clips from the original series chosen to give the impression that Number Six/McGoohan is present with Holland and Fry - this is edited together quite well except that the differing quality of the film stock gives the game away completely.

The sketches are of questionable quality, and show that Sir Stephen's Comic Authority Figure persona really only works properly when he's playing opposite Hugh Laurie (who does make a brief appearance, but not sharing in any scenes with Fry). The biggest laughs come from the only other prisoner in the Village, Number Three, a.k.a. Stanley Unwin.

Where this does prove worthwhile is in the accuracy of the pastiche - the attention to detail shows this was a labour of love on somebody's part, possibly Holland's? For instance, when Number Seven is about to reveal why he resigned (before being interrupted by the need to introduce one of the live bands), he says word-for-word what Number Six says when he almost reveals why he resigned in The Chimes of Big Ben.

The Laughing Prisoner is available on YouTube here, for the time being at least. As we approach the 50th anniversary of The Prisoner, it is worth checking out this curiosity if you have never done so. And a little curiosity never harmed anybody.