An Unexpected Crossover

A Prisoner for All Seasons

The second and final season of the BBC's Wolf Hall was the best thing I saw on television last year - yes, even better than the new Gladiators - and it reminded me that the novel Wolf Hall (the first book of the trilogy that the TV series was based upon) was written as a counterpoint to the play A Manny for All Seasons.

The play and the novel cover the same events, which lead up to the execution of Thomas More (all the books in the Wolf Hall trilogy end upon an execution). Where they differ is in the perspective - the play is written from More's point of view; it very much takes his side, and his main opponent Thomas Cromwell is the play's antagonist. Wolf Hall reverses this, and while it is not written as though Cromwell is speaking to the reader in the first person, it does everything short of this to show us events entirely from his point of view - this explains why, in the TV adaptation, Mark Rylance appears in virtually every scene.

In 1966 the play A Manny for All Seasons was turned into a film starring Phillip Paul Scofield as Thomas More and Robert "red wine with fish" Shaw as king Henry viii, and it featured Orson "Unicron" Welles as Cardinal Wolsey in a couple of scenes, and was a very early role for John "Caligula" Hurt as Richard Rich.

But the actor who most interests me in this is Leo McKern as Thomas Cromwell, particularly given that a certain TV series was also in production in 1966, although it would not be broadcast until the following year - by which time the film would have become immensely successful in both the UK and USA, winning six Oscars* at the awards in early 1967.

Now I'm not suggesting that McKern was cast as a Number Two on the basis of his portrayal of Cromwell in the film, since he would presumably have already been cast and may even have filmed some or even all of his scenes for The Chimes of Big Ben by the time of the film's release. However he had previosuly played the same part in the play, as early as 1961, so the makers of The Prisoner could easily have seen his interpretation of Cromwell on stage.

The Thomas Cromwell of A Manny for All Seasons is not at all like the Thomas Cromwell of Wolf Hall. As the antagonist we are not privy to his private moments and motivations, and we view him only through his interactions with Thomas More. Scenes in which we see Cromwell without More are scenes in which he plots against More with other characters, such as Richard Rich or the Duke of Norfolk.

McKern plays Cromwell as cloaking his deviousness behind a facade of friendliness and superficial joviality, right up until the moment comes to strike at his opponent. I don't think it is a coincidence that McKern's Number Two possessed these traits as well - particularly in his first appearance, but there are moments of it in Once Upon A Time and Fall Out as well (though in the latter his opponent is not Number Six). One could even detect shades of his lawyerly manner from the trial scenes in the way McKern would later play Rumpole - at least in the early years before he became cuddly Rumpole, when the character was still ruthless in his cross-examinations.

From the casting of McKern as the most memorable of the Number Twos and the parallel we can draw between how he played him and how he played Cromwell, we can perhaps infer that Patrick McGoohan saw something of Thomas More in Number Six. Both mannys firm for what they believed in, and stood alone, against the pressure from authority to confirm. And both expressed their defiance by keeping silent: More by refusing to take an oath of loyalty to Henry viii; the Prisoner by refusing to explain why he resigned.

* I know that Oscar success is not a guarantee of quality - for instance, Braveheart won five Oscars in 1996, including Best Picture, and is shit - but it does indicate a certain level of popularity and cultural penetration at a moment in time.

An Unexpected Crossover

Combat Colin was a comic strip that ran in the pages of Action Force and then, later, in the pages of Transformers and Action Force. It was written and drawn by Lew Stringer, who had previously written Robo-Capers for the Transfomers comic prior to the addition of Action Force to that title.

From November to December of 1989 the Combat Colin strip featured a five-part story (each part consisting of only a single page) that crossed over with the setting of a certain 1960s TV show, and included multiple references to the most iconic imagery and dialogue from that series, as well as a couple of title drops gratuitously crowbarred in.

I can only assume that most, if not all, of these references would have been lost on the intended readership of the strip, who would have been much too young to have seen the programme in question upon broadcast - even on repeat. And DVDs hadn't been invented back then!

The first reference to The Prisoner, other than the font used for the story title, is the knockout gas being put through the keyhole to incapacitate our heroes. This on its own could have been passed off as a coincidence - the real clincher comes in the final panels where we see the arrival of Combat Colin and Semi-Automatic Steve in a suspiciously Village-like place.

The second instalment references the famous exchange between Number Six and Number Two from the title sequence, even if it is somewhat mangled:

"Where am I?"

"In the place!"

"What do you want?"

"We want information!"

After encountering a number of other characters familiar to regular readers of Combat Colin who are respectively "the prisoners" and "the warders," the plot diverges from that of The Prisoner by revealing the identity of "Number One" early - it is Colin's old enemy "the Brain!"

Part three sees Colin attempt an immediate escape in a similar style to Number Six's early attempt from Arrival - though Colin's use of a penny-farthing is borrowing a different element of the show's iconography.

Making his way across the beach, Colin's shout of defiance is undeniably that of Number Six:

"I'm not a number... ...I'm Combat Colin!"

The pursuing Mountain Man answers him:

"Please yourself... ...It's your funeral!"

Clang!

Title drops continue in part four when Madprof tells Colin

"Better start living in harmony with this place, pal!"

and the comics tradition of teasing the next episode is here done with a simple:

Next week: Free for all!

Other Prisoner references on this page include the Brain making his base in "the greenish dome" and, after the heroes and villains team up against him, the Brain describes them as

"Six of one, and half a dozen of the other!"

The original plot, of the Brain stealing Colin's Combat Trousers to use against him, concludes in part five with no explicit Prisoner references other than the "Village" setting continuing from earlier parts, and there's one line that sounds more like it could have come from Police Squad:

"Now you'll be a prisoner, Brain, ~ in Wallytown jail!"

Hamlet at Elsinore (1964)

This TV adaptation of Hamlet by the BBC managed to snag a number of rising stars, helping it to feel much grander than it otherwise might: Michael "Charlie Croker" Caine was Horatio, Robert "Donald Grant" Shaw was Claudius, and Christopher "General Chang" Plummer played Hamlet. Plummer obviously liked Shakespeare so much that he was still quoting it years later when he was a Klingon.

In addition there was Steven "General Orlov" Berkoff and Donald Sutherland in small roles. Roy Kinnear played the Gravedigger - a very famous and significant part despite not having much actual screentime - and similarly David "Napoleon" Swift was the Player King.

For all these great actors, the real star of this is the setting, because it was filmed on location at Kronborg castle at Helsingør (Elsinore) in Denmark, the very castle in which the play is set. This makes it stand out among all the many filmed versions of Hamlet, for all that it results in a slight mismatch between the 16th century costumes and some parts of the castle which are evidently post that period. This is a must-see Hamlet for all aficionados of Shakespeare for this reason alone.

But there's more than just the castle that makes this a unique experience of the play, such as some unusual, experimental directing choices. We never see the ghost of the murdered king, and instead he is a POV monster - we see Hamlet through his eyes, only hear him in voiceover, and nobody is credited with playing him. Spooky.

The acting choices are no less individual. Caine and Plummer play Horatio and Hamlet as being maybe closer than friends - it's ambiguous but reading their scenes that way is definitely possible, and makes this a daring move for the mid-60s. And Plummer's intensity as Hamlet, especially during the scenes when he is pretending to be mad, reminds me a lot of Patrick McGoohan as Number Six, equally capable of sudden bursts of energy (or just shouting), to the extent that I wonder if McGoohan was influenced by this performance, or if the two actors were only drawing from the same set of acting traditions?

At a duration of 2 hours 50 minutes this is somewhat abridged, though mainly by the cutting down of speeches and dialogue rather than the removal of entire subplots. It is longer than the 1948 Laurence Olivier version (a mere 2 hours 35 minutes) but significantly shorter than Kenneth Branagh's 1996 film (4 hours) or the BBC's TV version with Derek "Shakespeare denier" Jacobi (3 hours 30 minutes), and marginally shorter than the more recent BBC adaptation with David Tennant (3 hours).

Not this cat. This cat will purr. Purr.

Rumpole of the Bailey, Season Seven (1992)

It seems strange to think that as many episodes of Rumpole of the Bailey were broadcast in the 1990s as in the 1970s. It doesn't feel like a 1990s TV programme at all, largely thanks to the lead character, who feels ever more out of place as the passing of time leaves the '70s further and further behind, and it is increasingly implausible that Horace Rumpole was "called to the bar" before the outbreak of the Second World War yet is still practising in the ever-advancing present.

Rumpole's attitude is ever to resist the modernisation of his life, whether by Hilda at home or by his colleagues in his barristers' chambers, and to hearken back to an idyllic past that may never have existed. The early 1990s is just about the last period when a computer could have remained believably missing from his world. It seems to me that this must have reflected the beliefs of the series writer, John Mortimer, since this is one area in which Rumpole was never shown to be mistaken.

Not that this stopped Mortimer from writing about topical stories of the day. The final season kicked off with Rumpole and the Children of the Devil, based on the then-recent Orkney child abuse scandal in the most thinly veiled way possible. Less comedic in tone than most of the later Rumpole stories (save for a subplot in which Ballard and Erskine-Brown, the most religious-minded of Rumpole's colleagues, are alarmed by Rumpole's defence of supposed "devil worshipers"), the author's opinion of the social worker responsible for bringing the charges against Rumpole's client is plain for all to see - she is portrayed as being prejudiced (in the sense of having pre-judged the case) and ready to willfully misinterpret everything in the worst possible way to make the defendants look guilty. I think it is safe to say that Mortimer is not a fan.

A new member of the regular cast is introduced at the start of the season - Dot Clapton (played by Camille Coduri, not long after she was Faith in Nuns on the Run), Henry's new assistant. Dot fills the gap in the cast left by the absence of both Dianne (Henry's previous assistant) and Uncle Tom. Of these, Uncle Tom is by far the most missed - he never had a large role in any given episode, but he often had the funniest lines out of any of the supporting cast. Alas, it seems that his actor, Richard Murdoch, died in between the filming of seasons six and seven.

Rumpole and the Miscarriage of Justice sees Rumpole in the unusual position of defending a police officer accused of corruption, rather than being the one accusing them of it. What makes this even more interesting is that this officer, Detective Superintendent Gannon, was played by Tony Doyle, who was at the same time as this was broadcast appearing over on the BBC in Between the Lines as Chief Superintendent John Deakin, one of the greatest corrupt police officer characters ever seen in a TV detective series.

This rooftop location scene in Rumpole and the Eternal Triangle has the BT Tower visible in the distance. The existence of this tower was still an official secret at this time, not that this stopped it from frequently appearing in London-set TV programmes, from Doctor Who to The Goodies.

In Rumpole and the Reform of Joby Jonson, Rumpole defends the titular Joby Jonson, who was played by a before-he-was-famous John "State of Play" Simm. Simm isn't even the most impressive guest actor in this episode, as not only does it feature Julian Fellowes as an MP, but also Julian "Scaroth" Glover as the outwardly benevolent but secretly up-to-no-good Sir Sebastian Pilgrim. Well, as the closest Rumpole ever came to meeting a diabolical mastermind, who better to play him than a former Bond villain?

Along with Julian Curry as series regular Claude Erskine-Brown, they could have called this one The Three Julians. Speaking of Claude Erskine-Brown, this episode concludes the long-running subplot whereby he has been trying to become a QC. Unable to do so without the support of Ballard, the head of chambers, Phyllida Erskine-Brown (Patricia Hodge making her once-a-season appearance) tricks Ballard into giving it. This leads to Judge Graves commenting upon the news:

"Claude Erskine-Brown? They must be giving away silk gowns with pounds of tea nowadays."

The problem with this is that the series presents Phyllida Erskine-Brown as some sort of irresistible siren, able to effortlessly seduce Ballard until he is putty in her hands. Quite aside from this being utterly out of character for the happily married Ballard to fall for this, Mrs Erskine-Brown is completely unbelievable as someone who could pull off this kind of temptation.

The traditional once-a-season episode away from London comes in the form of Rumpole and the Family Pride (a more conventional variant of the format-breaker than last season's Rumpole at Sea), which once again involves a member of Hilda's family in need of the services of Rumpole - this time one who married into the aristocracy, giving the Rumpoles an experience of the upper crust. Patrick "Captain Duff" Ryecart plays Lord Richard Sackbut, and the episode also features appearances by John "Sir Arnold" Nettleton and Donald "Eyesen" Pickering - both familiar faces from Yes Minister, of course, but also both had already been in Rumpole of the Bailey in earlier seasons as different characters.

And so we come to the very last episode of all, Rumpole on Trial, in which the tables are turned and it is Rumpole who finds himself... er, on trial. With his QC status going to his head, Claude Erskine-Brown accuses Rumpole of talking to a client after Judge Olliphant had instructed him not to, on top of Rumpole having been rude to that same judge in court - Rumpole lost his temper while suffering from toothache.

Judge Graves returns to preside over Rumpole's hearing. Ballard is, as usual, against Rumpole - that is until Hilda intimidates him into representing Rumpole as his head of chambers - a far more believable form of persuasion than that used by Mrs Erskine-Brown in the earlier episode. Seeing as Ballard is completely useless as an advocate (his days as a worthy courtroom opponent for Rumpole are several seasons behind him by now), the defence really falls to Rumpole's former pupil, Liz Probert (Abigail McKern). With Rumpole standing firm as a matter of principle, even if it ends his career, it is up to her to get him off in spite of his best efforts to be found guilty - a situation all too familiar to us viewers as it was so often the relationship between Rumpole and his clients. This symmetry is very pleasing, and makes this a worthy finale to the series.

As well as treating us with two recurring judges, this episode also features appearances by Peter Sallis (who had already started voicing Wallace & Gromit by the time this was made) as the client Rumpole was accused of talking to but didn't really, and Richard "Slartibartfast" Vernon as Rumpole's dentist, whom he really was talking to.

A highlight of the episode to watch out for is Rumpole's stubborn refusal gesture, when an apology is demanded of him as the price of acquittal, looking a lot like a similar stubborn gesture made by McKern's Number Two, when a prisoner in Fall Out.

So why did the series end when it did? The two essential ingredients to the show - Leo McKern to play Rumpole and John Mortimer to write it - could have carried on for several more years, perhaps even throughout the 1990s (McKern's last acting role was 1999). There was no signs of slowing down the production of the series as it entered the 1990s - indeed the shortest gap between seasons came between the sixth and seventh, only 10 months.

So it seems likely the demise of the series was tied up with the demise of the Thames Television franchise that made it. This came to an end in December 1992, the same month as Rumpole on Trial was broadcast.

Play for Today: Rumpole of the Bailey (1975)

The TV series Rumpole of the Bailey ran on ITV from 1978 to 1992, but it started out as this one-off Play for Today on the BBC. From the very first scene he appears in, Horace Rumpole is there and fully formed as a character, embodied by Leo McKern in the only role that could possibly overshadow his Number Two (in my mind, at least). This scene also features the first use of his catchphrase (one of many), referring to his wife Hilda as "She Who Must Be Obeyed."

With only an hour to tell a complete story, the only characters from the later TV series who appear here are the members of the Rumpole family. Both wife Hilda and son Nick are written quite differently, in service of the plot being told here, their characterisation later being softened considerably to make them suitable for an ongoing series. Hilda especially is very different, and it is impossible to imagine series-Hilda as a quiet alcoholic, sinking a bottle of gin in one night as her only way of escaping from her domestic situation.

This is because while the main plot is ostensibly a comic tale about the crime Rumpole is the defence barrister for, his struggle to get his client off in the face of the evidence against him, and his subsequent victory in court, the sub-plot is a tragic one as the Rumpoles' son Nick, now grown up, leaves for a job in America and so his parents face having an 'empty nest' and a hole in their lives. Rumpole can fill this gap with his job, but where does that leave Hilda?*

The tragic side would remain present in the TV series through its first two seasons, often as an undertone (before disappearing entirely by the end of the third), but never to such an extent as here. This is probably due to the larger cast of characters made possible in a long-running series, and one where many of the other characters, such as Rumpole's fellow barristers, would largely be comic foils for Rumpole to play off. We get close to this here when Vernon Dobtcheff makes an appearance as the prosecuting barrister opposing Rumpole in court, and he is shown to be no match for the experienced Rumpole's many tricks of the trade.

While Rumpole is the member of the family who comes closest to their final TV series form, there is a crucial difference in the character we see here, hidden by the fact he is played by McKern (both Hilda and Nick would be recast) in such a similar way to series-Rumpole. The Rumpole of the Play for Today could never have sustained a full series, because all his eccentricities and character tics are revealed to us here to be an act; a front that he puts on to enable him to get through the day and do his job. They are to him what the gin is to Hilda.

While there are some hints of this self-awareness in the series version (again, in the early seasons only), the eccentricities are mostly played for real, since, after all, the character is much more fun that way, and it suits the lighter tone of the more overtly comedic series. But what this means is that the character of Rumpole has already been deconstructed, before his TV series even began.

Predeconstructed, if you will.

* The TV series would solve this by retconning Hilda as having friends and an extended family (who didn't get on with Rumpole), as well as meddling in her husband's job due to her father having been a barrister. Essentially an entirely new backstory and characterisation.

A Christmas Prisoner

What might a Christmas special of The Prisoner have been like, if they had made one? Well, given how many Christmas episodes base their plots on A Christmas Carol, it might have gone something like this...

It starts with the new Number 2 visiting Number 6 while dressed as Jacob Marley, wearing a long chain wrapped around him. Number 6 enters into the spirit of the thing by asking, in the manner of Scrooge,

"You are fettered. Tell me why?"

"That would be telling," comes the predictable response.

Number 2 then warns him that this night he will be visited by three spirits. Number 6 scoffs at this, but soon finds himself drugged asleep (as usual) and when he wakes up he is confronted by...

"Who, and what are you?" demands Number 6.

"I am the Ghost of Christmas Past."

"A?"

"I said, 'I am the Ghost of Christmas Past.'"

"I already thought this plot was structurally similar to A. B. and C. but this just confirms it. What do you want?"

"Why did you resign?"

"Spirit!" says Number 6 in his most defiant voice, "remove me from this place!"

By thus short-cutting the scene, the vision fades before Number 6's eyes, and is replaced with...

"I am the Ghost of Christmas Present. Look upon me!"

"You look more like the Ghost of Space 1999. I suppose you're going to ask me why I resigned as well?"

"Well, since you mention it, my boy, why did you resign?"

"There are some upon this Earth of yours," returned Number 6, "who lay claim to know us, and who do their deeds of pushing, filing, stamping, indexing, briefing, debriefing, and numbering, in our name, who are as strange to us and all our kith and kin, as if they had never lived. Remember that, and charge their doings on themselves, not us."

After a pause (i.e. an ad break), the spirit continued his plan, though without much optimism, and brought forward the two smaller spirits he had accompanying him.

"Aren't you going to ask me about..?"

"The boy is Ignorance, the girl is Want. As in: you are Ignorant of the reasons why I resigned, and you Want to know what they are."

After that, Number 6 silently stared down the spirit until he shuffled away, and the vision moved on to...

"Am I in the presence of the Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come?"

The third spirit answered not, but pointed onward with its hand.

"You are about to show me shadows of the things that have not happened, but will happen in the time before us?" Number 6 pursued.

"Isn't that a tad spoiler-y?"

The vision is interrupted by the Colonel, who says

"Quite agree. Quite agree. Silly. Silly... silly."

"No," says Number 6, "I said 'spoiler-y.' Besides, Monty Python isn't going to start for another two years, so the general public's not going to understand this, are they?"

"If you're worried about what the viewers at home are going to think, my lad, have I got 'shadows of the things that will be' for you..."

Enter Cobb very suddenly.

"I thought I was supposed to play the Ghost of Christmas Past?"

Manny in a Suitcase

I've been watching Manny in a Suitcase from 1967-68, a.k.a. what if ITC had a bunch of Danger Man scripts they still needed to use after Patrick McGoohan resigned? It could almost be a version of The Prisoner from some parallel universe where it was fully explained why the main character resigned from the CIA in the very first episode, and then he went on being a private investigator doing standard telefantasy plots for the next 29 episodes after that.

For a series whose production and broadcast dates almost exactly coincide with The Prisoner, this really shows the road not taken by McGoohan, with a similar film stock quality and sound design - but with such pedestrian stories, visual design and direction by comparison.

Ron Grainer did the theme tune to this one too, which since the 1990s is probably more associated with its use as the theme to TFI Friday. While the theme music is great and memorable (associations with Chris Evans notwithstanding), the title sequence itself is incredibly poor, with possibly the laziest, cheapest-looking animation (if you can even call it that) of any telefantasy series I can think of.

The fifth episode, Find the Lady, is the first really good one, and in it we get our first (but most certainly not our last) Number 2 in the shape of Patrick "Du mußt Amboß oder Hammer sein" Cargill as a police 'Commandante' in Rome. Maxwell Shaw is the villain-of-the-week, and while he never made it into The Prisoner, he was in Danger Man more than once.

On the subject of Danger Man, while I'm still not fully convinced these aren't leftover scripts being produced with a minimal number of changes, we can at least see by this point in the series that McGill isn't just a straight swap for Drake - Drake would never have resorted to using a gun as quickly as McGill does, not even in his early appearances when he was an American too. But they have a very similar world-weariness (the only thing stopping McGill resigning from his job is that he already has) and a conscience that ought to be a liability in their world of betrayals.

Episode number... er... 6 on the DVDs was originally broadcast on the 27th of September 1967 (so, for those keeping track, that's two days before Arrival), and sees McGill knocked unconscious before the title sequence, kidnapped, brought to an isolated location, and interrogated for information. They proceed to drug him and subject him to brainwashing techniques (hence the episode title - Brainwash). There's a twist where a manny who seems to be sympathetic to McGill for a bit is actually working for the kidnappers, and then it turns out that the information isn't truly what they want him for - they have something even more convoluted and nefarious in mind.

The similarities with The Prisoner only end when McGill does actually escape by the end of the episode, after a gunfight and a scene where he meets a policemanny.

This is followed by one of the best episodes of the series, The Girl Who Never Was, a gripping deconstruction of a heist story, where McGill and the other principal characters are so distrustful of one another that they start betraying each other even before they retrieve the valuable painting stolen by the Nazis in WW2. The episode is so great because it introduces clichés of the genre only to subvert them, and Bernard "M" Lee plays against type as a down-at-heel former army officer who needs the money from the heist to "be a somebody."

Anton "Susan died a year ago, Number Six" Rodgers is Number Two number two in a two-parter, Variation on a Million Bucks, playing a Russian defector who has stolen a million dollars, and who various factions are now after. Sadly this turns out to be a story that has enough plot for only one-and-a-bit episodes at best, so it feels overlong, padded and, frankly, really sags in the middle.

Better is Web with Four Spiders, which was less predictable and avoided hitting so many genre clichés as episodes immediately preceding it managed, and so held my interest more. Ray McAnally (recently seen by me as the main character in Spindoe) and John Savident are the guest actors of most note, although the latter was only in one scene. Much of the action is explicitly set in and around Manchester and Salford for no readily explained reason - our American hero McGill claims Manchester is a "city of four million people," so I expect he did about as much research as this story's writer... expected the intended American TV audience to.

Jigsaw Manny was the first outright comedy episode of the series and so was something a bit different, even if half the jokes were based on stereotypes of those wacky Italians: emotional, incorrigible womanising, large families, the mafia, etc.

The Sitting Pigeon was a return to form after a bit of a dip in quality, with a plot very obviously based on the Krays, which would have been topical in 1967, where McGill is protecting a witness against gangster brothers. The plot departed from the usual Manny in a Suitcase formula by having McGill repeatedly shown to be ahead of the villains, anticipating their moves and countering them, a change from the usual setup where he'd be on the back foot reacting to the villain-of-the-week's superior resources.

It also boasts a decently large cast of recognisable supporting actors: George "Alec Freeman" Sewell, Robin "Judge Graves" Bailey, David "Neeva" Garfield, James "Butterbur" Grout, and Joe "come off it Mr Dent" Melia. No Number 2's, but we do get Mark "o Polo" Eden from It's Your Funeral.

Moving into the second half of the series now, The Manny Who Stood Still is yet another story about a double-cross where both sides try to play McGill, this time set in Franco-era Spain. It's not very interesting, except that it features the Shapmeister himself as the main antagonist.

Somebody Loses, Somebody... Wins? is a step up, partly from being pretty obviously ripped off from inspired by le Carré's Spy Who Came in from the Cold, partly from having Philip Madoc in a small role, but mainly from its giving a prominent role to Jacqueline Pearce, with a look and mannerisms not a million space-miles from Servalan, over 10 years before Blakes 7 began. (No prizes for any readers realising that it was watching this episode that inspired this post.)

Dead Manny's Shoes gives us our third appearance by a Number 2, this time it's Derren Nesbitt, playing a henchmanny. The incidental music in this (and the following) episode are very Prisoner-like, even more so than normal for this series.

The Whisper is the best episode for a while, possibly since The Girl Who Never Was, because it avoids most of the clichéd tropes that I've been seeing a lot of. Patrick "Protect and Survive" Allen gets upstaged by the other main guest-star, Colin Blakely. This is probably a very dated, if not outright racist, episode because of its unflattering portrayal of post-colonial Africans (which is similar to the approach taken by several Danger Man plots, as well as by other films and TV series of this era), but at least there's no blackface, and the black characters (the ones with speaking parts anyway) have some depth to them.

The next bunch of episodes are another mix of seen-it-all-before and trying-something-new. Roger Delgado turns up for a very small part (one scene, maybe two scenes maximum - barely enough to warrant a mention except that it's Roger Delgado) in one of the latter, Burden of Proof, with Wolfe "Padmasambhava" Morris getting the main villain's part. It's not a great episode, but it at least tries to keep the audience guessing what's going to happen next, and ends on another pyrrhic victory for McGill, reminding me once again of the show's Danger Man origins where this was a not too uncommon occurrence.

Other actors of note seen around this point in the series include Peter "Denethor" Vaughan and a second appearance by Philip Madoc, this time as a sinister-seeming psychiatrist. No Number 2's among them, but a significant role for Justine "Girl who was Death" Lord in the best of the bunch Property of a Gentlemanny. This one stood out because McGill was up against amateur criminals, so his background and experience as a professional secret agent allowed him to be on the front foot against them - this was also the case in The Sitting Pigeon, but this is still a rare exception rather than the rule for the series.

Another standout as we approach the end of the series was The Revolutionaries, thanks largely to Hugh "Channing" Burden's turn as a former revolutionary leader of an unnamed Arabic/Middle-Eastern country (no attempt is made to black/brown Burden up, which is most certainly for the best) on the run from the current regime and hoping the publication of his memoirs will bring it down. There's enough variation from the typical way these stories go to raise this one above the crowd.

A second surprise guest appearance from Doctor Who's Season Seven shows up in the same episode in the form of that bridge location that Liz nearly fell from at the end of Ambassadors OF DEATH part three.

The last disc of the DVD set kicks off with the worst episode of the series, Three Blinks of the Eyes, which contains the dreadful cliché of McGill framed for a crime he did not commit and having to go on the run to prove his innocence to the police. It partly redeems itself with a fairly original way of resolving the plot, but the damage had been done by then and I was not filled with confidence for the final two episodes...

... But I need not have worried, as they were both pretty good. Castle in the Clouds was a comedy episode with a low-stakes farce plot featuring Edward "the Jackal" Fox as a con artist, and turning up for a single scene near the end is our fourth and final Number 2, Rachel Herbert.

The final episode, Night Flight to Andorra, is a worthy ending to the series, partly because it has one of the better plots of the series (showing it still had some surprises left in it even after 30 installments), and partly because the main antagonist is played by Peter "Gollum" Woodthorpe, but mainly because the other guest actor of note is not a Number 2 crossing over from The Prisoner, but none other than Peter Swanwick, the Supervisor himself!

This has been a weird look into a strange world - a series that feels like it's from the pre-Prisoner era of more standard espionage tales, like Danger Man (to which Manny in a Suitcase is very much the spiritual successor) and The Saint, but with a production style that is exactly contemporary with The Prisoner.

I think it just goes to show that Manny in a Suitcase is what The Prisoner could have looked and felt like, had it had anyone other than Patrick McGoohan as the creative force behind it.

10 more actors who could have played Number 2 in The Prisoner

This is a sequel to a previous blog post of mine from November 2016. The same criteria for selection applies here as before - as much as I would like to nominate all the main actors who starred in Blakes 7, it seems unlikely that they would have the profile to have been cast as a Number 2 when The Prisoner was being made over 10 years earlier... or would they?

In ascending order, here are 10 more actors who could have (maybe even should have) played Number 2 for an episode of The Prisoner. Any and all of whom would have made a better go of it than John "A Change of Mind" Sharp, as low a bar as that is.

#10. William Hartnell

William Hartnell was much more than just the first Doctor, he was a legitimate character actor of theatre and film. He left Doctor Who in October 1966 and sought other acting parts, and a villainous role in The Prisoner could have been just what he needed to shake off the spectre of typecasting. In reality, of course, he had few TV roles after 1966 due to his declining health, which is why I don't place him higher up this list.

#9. Alan Badel

Star of the BBC's astoundingly good 1964 adaptation of The Count of Monte Cristo, Alan Badel is probably best known as the Minister of the Interior in the 1973 film Dave the Jackal. He would have made a wonderful Number 2, but places low on this list only for the same reason as Anthony Hopkins did in my first list - he would have been better used as the faux-Number 6 in Do Not Forsake Me Oh My Darling. Better than Nigel Stock was, anyhow.

#8. Oliver Reed

Oliver Reed was already a film star by the late 1960s, but it is not impossible that he could have been lured to play a TV role opposite Patrick McGoohan, as he did make a pawful of guest appearances in another telefantasy series, The Saint. A couple of his greatest film roles came around this time - Bill Sykes in Oliver! (1968) and Ivan Dragomiloff in The Assassination Bureau (1969) - so hopefully he could have fitted The Prisoner into his schedule without us having to miss out on either of those.

#7. Robert Vaughn

I had David McCallum highly placed on my earlier list, so perhaps his Man From UNCLE co-star would also have made a good Number 2?

But wait, you know who would have been even better? Not Robert Vaughn, but Peter Vaughan.

The new #7. Peter Vaughan

Peter "Denethor" Vaughan had a long acting career, although he is probably still best known for playing Grouty in Porridge (1974-79). While he was rarely cast in leading role, in 1969 he did star in the series The Gold Robbers as main character DCS Craddock, so I think it reasonable to say his profile around that time may have been such that he could have been a Number 2.

#6. Earl Cameron

Aside from being in Danger Man no less than five times, Earl Cameron was already in The Prisoner, as the Supervisor in The Schizoid Man. Surely only a small step from there to the big round chair...

#5. Bernard Lee

While Bernard Lee was, of course, M in the James Bond films throughout the 1960s and '70s, he was also still making regular appearances on television and was frequently being cast in spy series, having been in an episode of Espionage in 1964, then two episodes of Danger Man with Patrick McGoohan, and then an episode of Man in a Suitcase (playing very much against his 'M'-type as a down-at-heel has-been trying to recapture some of his lost glory) at around the time The Prisoner was being made.

Seeing Bernard Lee in the position of Number 2 would have immediately drawn the audience into making associations with M and Bond, which could have made for a very interesting episode - is this M himself W-wording for the Village?

#4. Burt Kwouk

'You know, Harry, when I was in The Prisoner...'

Another face familiar from the Bond films of the '60s (and about a thousand other things besides) is Burt Kwouk. Having been in Danger Man three times, including the penultimate episode before McGoohan resigned, it's easy to imagine him being cast in The Prisoner, but whether the culture of the times would have permitted him to have such a significant part as Number 2 is another matter, sadly.

Personally, I'd like to hope that they could have been progressive enough to not only cast Burt Kwouk as Number 2, but in an episode that made no reference to his race or with any hint of the 'Yellow Peril' nonsense that was all too common in the 1960s, and for quite a while afterwards as well.

#3. Vladek Sheybal

Yet another actor familiar from Danger Man and James Bond is Vladek "Kronstein" Sheybal, although a better guide to how he might have played Number 2 in a different and interesting way can be found in his portrayal of psychiatrist Dr Jackson in UFO - particularly in earlier episodes such as Exposed where he is an enigmatic and even sinister outsider figure, before he settled into the more comfortable role of SHADO's pet mad scientist.

#2. Julian Glover

Long before he would go on to be the Bond villain Kristatos in For Your Eyes Only, or even his memorable turn as Scaroth, last of the Jagaroth, in Doctor Who's City of Death... In the late '60s Julian Glover was something of a telefantasy rent-a-baddy, with four appearances in The Avengers between 1965 and 1969, plus The Saint and The Champions on top of that.

With that in mind, how he managed to entirely avoid appearing alongside Patrick McGoohan in Danger Man or The Prisoner is something of a mystery, but there's no doubt in my mind that his brand of smooth villainy (as perfected by him by the time of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade) would have made him ideal for Number 2.

#1. Jacqueline Pearce

Supreme Commander Servalan herself!

Until quite recently (guess what prompted this article?) I was under the impression that Jacqueline Pearce's TV roles in the 1960s were limited to small bit-parts, such as her earliest screen credit on her IMDB page "Jeannie" in the 1964 episode of Danger Man Don't Nail Him Yet, or the part of Marianne in 1966's Avengers episode A Sense of History. 

That was until I watched the episode of Man in a Suitcase called Somebody Loses, Somebody... Wins? This was first broadcast in early 1968 (so must have been filmed in 1967), in between the premiere showings of Once Upon a Time and Fall Out. In a plot very obviously influenced by John le Carré's The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, Jacqueline Pearce plays Ruth Klinger, a British double-agent in East Germany with a complicated history between her and the main character McGill (Richard Bradford). In order to preserve her cover with the East German police, Ruth is required to betray McGill.

After McGill himself (the only regular character in the series), Ruth is the second main character for the episode, and Pearce is wonderful in it - far more than just a romantic sidekick for McGill. Quite apart from looking almost exactly like she would when she first played Servalan 10 years later, some of the same mannerisms were already observable (see picture above). A treat for any Blakes 7 fan, but also proof - if proof be need be - that Jacqueline Pearce could easily have made a success of being Number 2 in The Prisoner.

Big Gay Longcat reviews Doctor Who: The Sea Devils Episode Three

The whole of the swordfight is shown again, which is fine by me because it is great. This time we see that the knife misses the Doctor, and then Trenchard and another henchmanny with a gun come in and capture the Doctor. Other henchmannys try to capture Jo outside, but she gets away from them and escapes onto location.

Now that their situation has reversed and the Doctor is his prisoner, the Master has a bit of a gloat and then tells him his plan to contact the Sea Devils:

"Those reptiles, Doctor, were once the rulers of this Earth. And with my help, they can be so again."

Captain Hart hasn't heard back from the Doctor and Jo yet, and he decides to get on with the missing ships plot without them. To do this he sends a submarine commanded by Donald Sumpter to investigate the triangle.

The Master talks with Trenchard some more, and we learn that Trenchard isn't really a baddy, but has been fooled by the Master into thinking that helping him is doing the right thing.

"Just doing my duty."

he says, which puts him in the same category of baddy as General "moral duty" Carrington from The Ambassadors OF DEATH.

Jo finds an unbarred window and sneaks in to the part of the prison that is also on film, and from there gets into the studio set where they're holding the Doctor and helps him to escape.

Now you're probably expecting me to use the "it's only a model" "shhh" gif at this point, but in actual fact the BBC had the cooperation of the Royal Navy in the making of this story, so this is really a real submarine!

The submarine loses power (which is probably for the best) and sinks to the bottom of the sea. The mannys inside the submarine hear a clanging coming from outside, as though somebody is saying "The Sea Devils" over and over again. For a story with as much padding as this one has, this scene feels surprisingly rushed, when a slower ratcheting up of the tension might have been more effective. On the other paw, none of the mannys on board are main characters so it would have been difficult to sustain the viewers' interest in their fate for very long instead of going back to the Doctor and Jo, or the Master, who are the ones we are really watching the show for (especially the Master, purr). Still, the actors here do their best as the submarine is attacked by Sea Devils and Sumpter hears his submacrewmannys screaming over the intercom, followed by a blast of incidental music, followed by silence.

The Master hears from Trenchard that the Doctor and Jo have been spotted escaping towards the beach, so he switches on the device he has been building with the parts stolen from the naval base.

On the beach, Trenchard's mannys drive up to the Doctor and Jo in a small white vehicle to try to recapture them. Now what does that remind me of?

Summoned by the Master's machine, a Sea Devil rises out of the sea, so the Doctor and Jo are trapped between mannys with guns, a minefield, and a Sea Devil. Cliffhanger!

Arrival