The Little Drummer Girl - BBC 2018

[hot air baboon]

6 episodes for this to unwind - 1 down

a nice straight faithful book-to-film adaptation in the Tinker Tailor tradition & which has further been kept it in the original time period rather than succumbing to the temptation to update it to the contemporary scene

there was a film version with Diane Keaton which sunk without trace which I've not bothered to hunt out even though I enjoyed the book so am hoping patience will be rewarded with something approaching the quality of the Baader-Meinhof Complex feature film

 

[Reno]

It’s been advertised with pics of my former council estate, which the Radio Times locates in Prague rather than in Camden. Even though Rowley Way gets used loads as a backdrop for just about anything.
Where is The Little Drummer Girl filmed?

 

[The Fornicator]

Felt a very confident first hour. Any Le Carre deserves more than a six hour adaptation but at least it's not a daft 2-hour Hollywood page-ripping exercise like that last Tinker tailor hatchet job with Cumbertwat.

 

[Plumdaff]

I rather enjoyed it, but it was an hour of set up. It's got a great cast, I thought the lead, Pugh, did a great job with quite a tough role. She had to be just skeptical and prepared to be swept off her feet enough.

 

[blossie33]

I'd love to see this but I don't have TV or access to iPlayer.

Coincidentally, I've just been watching the DVD (charity shop bargain ) of the BBC series of Smiley's People

 

[blossie33]

Felt a very confident first hour. Any Le Carre deserves more than a six hour adaptation but at least it's not a daft 2-hour Hollywood page-ripping exercise like that last Tinker tailor hatchet job with Cumbertwat.

Not particularly a Cumberbatch fan but I actually enjoyed that film, I remember the BBC Tinker Tailor and I don't always like remakes but I thought the film was done well.

 

[hot air baboon]

Felt a very confident first hour. Any Le Carre deserves more than a six hour adaptation but at least it's not a daft 2-hour Hollywood page-ripping exercise like that last Tinker tailor hatchet job with Cumbertwat.

but in some ways the BBC Tinker Tailor is *so* incredibly slow-paced by today's standards it would never get made that way today. I'm slightly disappointed that the "set-up" was done almost too quick as personally I grok all that Frederick Forsyth "meticulous planning" Day of the Jackal schtick - all the stuff about scouting her out, preparing the holding cell for the target etc etc .

An apotheosis of an adaptation for me would be a combination of Day of the Jackal type set-up with the German Baader film

 

[Griff]

Enjoyable and stylish.

Great attention to detail too, which so many get wrong. Having something set in 1979 doesn't mean all the cars are from 1979.

Sort of detail that normally jars me, but with this they really look like they made the effort.

A decent first episode.

 

[The Fornicator]

Not particularly a Cumberbatch fan but I actually enjoyed that film, I remember the BBC Tinker Tailor and I don't always like remakes but I thought the film was done well.

It was certainly called Tinker Tailor but it was as much le Carre's Tinker Tailor as St Pepper would be St Pepper with everything except the base line stripped out. It was a one-themed money-making exercise.

 

[Santino]

Enjoyable and stylish.

Great attention to detail too, which so many get wrong. Having something set in 1979 doesn't mean all the cars are from 1979.

Sort of detail that normally jars me, but with this they really look like they made the effort.

A decent first episode.

I noticed that the New Penguin Shakespeare edition of As You Like It was far too recent.

Although a couple of weeks ago on Doctor Who, Rosa Parks clearly had an Ikea clock on her office wall.

 

[Reno]

Fair enough, but with TV budgets you can’t expect 100% authenticity. I like the idea of Rosa Parks shopping at IKEA though.

 

[hot air baboon]

I noticed that the New Penguin Shakespeare edition of As You Like It was far too recent.

the prop person responsible should be made to walk around in 70's gear for the next month - that'll larn 'em to pay attention to what decade they are meant to be in

 

[Reno]

the prop person responsible should be made to walk around in 70's gear for the next month - that'll larn 'em to pay attention to what decade they are meant to be in

Never been a huge fan of he condescending "the decade that fashion forgot" attitude while pointing to Woolworths style polyester suits. Much of 70s fashion was pretty great. 70s fashion was far more diverse than the later revisionism of the decade would have you believe. There was a whole revival of 30s and 40s style clothes. In the 90s and 00s I went through a couple of decades where I wore mostly 70s imitations of 40s clothes because I wasn’t a fan of the baggy clothes that were current then. Of course not everything was great, but the same is true now.

 

[hot air baboon]

well if they can find anything like that in the charity shop after they've finished checking out the book section they are welcome to wear it

 

[dylanredefined]

My mate is an extra in this.

 

[Griff]

Much of 70s fashion was pretty great.

Indeed.

I'm a great fan of '70s watches (less so the late '70s), and there are companies producing great 70s inspired creations. Even large companies like Seiko have ranges like Recraft which sell massively well. I have a rather funky green and orange one which is 70stastic. The originals are hideously expensive, but at the same time really are something else.

 

[Mrs Miggins]

Florence Pugh was the lead in easily the best film I saw last year so I'm watching her.
Lady Macbeth review – brilliantly chilling subversion of a classic | Peter Bradshaw's film of the week

 

[imposs1904]

Florence Pugh was the lead in easily the best film I saw last year so I'm watching her.
Lady Macbeth review – brilliantly chilling subversion of a classic | Peter Bradshaw's film of the week

Her voice has a strange effect on me.

 

[imposs1904]

Florence Pugh was the lead in easily the best film I saw last year so I'm watching her.
Lady Macbeth review – brilliantly chilling subversion of a classic | Peter Bradshaw's film of the week

Just watched a trailer for that film. The rest of her has a strange effect on me.

 

[Mrs Miggins]

Just watched a trailer for that film. The rest of her has a strange effect on me.

Watch it...it's very good! Its on Amazon Prime if you've got that.

 

[Mrs Miggins]

Episode 2...La Pugh is utterly magnetic.

 

[The Fornicator]

For a 22-year old who's never been near an acting class she is a mature performer.

 

[editor]

I'm loving this so far! And, yes, Pugh is an incredible actress.

 

[belboid]

Florence Pugh was the lead in easily the best film I saw last year so I'm watching her.
Lady Macbeth review – brilliantly chilling subversion of a classic | Peter Bradshaw's film of the week

Oh, of course that’s who it is.

You’re also right that that was the best film of last year.

 

[Plumdaff]

Is anyone else still watching it? It seems to be getting a lot of criticism for being slow; but that's precisely what I'm finding so enjoyable. Not really that it was slow last night - it's just all the careful set up is starting to pay off. I really like the focus on the psychological toll (very Le Carre I suppose) and the moral complexity and uncertainty of it all.

 

[Chilli.s]

Found it unbelievable that a young actor would get involved with a bunch of weird old spies without considerable remuneration. Risk entire career/freedom/life driving a car of explosives across continent, naa.

 

[hot air baboon]

I suppose the idea is that she's in love with the moody Israeli spy who plays along as her lover to get her into the role ( and who then also starts developing real feelings for her ) while she's still retaining her original sympathies for the Palestinians aswell so all that's playing out . Weirdly its quite a bit like the whole Mark Kennedy spy-cops having relationships with activists debacle which I'm not sure if Le Carre could have known about in 1982 or whenever

 

[Plumdaff]

Found it unbelievable that a young actor would get involved with a bunch of weird old spies without considerable remuneration. Risk entire career/freedom/life driving a car of explosives across continent, naa.

I buy it. She didn't have a career. Her life was only half formed. She's estranged from a family she can't tell the truth about...

This is exciting. It feels real. It's far more meaningful than touring Somerset in a crap drama troupe (you could see her drifting away from her former friends and their more mundane intrigues). It's a cause....and she's in love with Gadi / Michel....

Young people (and older people) have always, will always, risk their lives for less ....

 

[xenon]

Found it unbelievable that a young actor would get involved with a bunch of weird old spies without considerable remuneration. Risk entire career/freedom/life driving a car of explosives across continent, naa.

Yeah,. I’m finding it to be unbelievable toss if I’m honest. Willing suspension of disbelief okay come on. I haven’t read the book. It’s like a glossy advert, just style over substance. Cardboard characters at best.

 

[redsquirrel]

I suppose the idea is that she's in love with the moody Israeli spy who plays along as her lover to get her into the role ( and who then also starts developing real feelings for her ) while she's still retaining her original sympathies for the Palestinians aswell so all that's playing out . Weirdly its quite a bit like the whole Mark Kennedy spy-cops having relationships with activists debacle which I'm not sure if Le Carre could have known about in 1982 or whenever

I don't really think it's that far-fetched. For all their propaganda about how they are fighting a underground war and saving lives the fact is state security services are very usually useless, stupid and deranged.

Bettaney came back to London a changed man. He decided that MI5 was both corrupt and incompetent. He started drinking heavily and told his colleagues loudly that he was no longer a fascist - but he had become a communist.

So MI5 decided to promote him. He was positively vetted again - found to be perfect MI5 material, and sent to the Russian desk.

Bettaney became more and more unstable. In October 1982 he was convicted of being drunk and disorderly. The next week he was convicted for fare-dodging. Finally MI5 did begin to notice - and two separate inquiries were set up to look into Bettaney's behaviour. But each was unaware of the other's existence.

Neither of them noticed that he had been stealing a huge amount of MI5 top secret documents and stashing them at his home. Bettaney was only caught when he took some of the best of these secrets and tried to stuff them into the letter box of the Second Secretary of the Russian Embassy - Mr Gouk.

It was recently revealed that back in the 1970s - at the height of the obsession with traitors - MI5 trained a specially bred group of gerbils to detect spies. Gerbils have a very acute sense of smell and they were used in interrogations to tell whether the suspects were releasing adrenaline - because that would show they were under stress and lying.