Play for Today: "Traitor" (1971) by Dennis Potter - TV Spy Drama - John Le Mesurier - Cold War

Disillusioned by his rich, aristocratic upbringing in Britain, top foreign office diplomat Adrian Harris (John Le Mesurier) became a spy for the Russians. He defected to Moscow after being found out and it is there that, a few years later, a group of Western journalists come in search of his story. He disgusts them with his drunken ranting, but, unknown to them, he has good reason to conceal his true feelings - IMDB.
"Le Mesurier is simply outstanding. Dennis Potter's script certainly gives Le Mesurier something decent to do, of course: it's a gift to an actor. But this particular actor makes a meal of it, breaking down before our eyes. Such an apparently mannered performer, so familiar to us all from "Dad's Army" - in this, he simply does familiar things in a slightly different way, to devastating effect. Manners and breeding, and he's somehow so SEEDY. One would never say that le Mesurier was 'wasted' in comedy, but it's splendid to see just how deep-beneath-the-skin he can go, and with such total control. Technique working in service of insight. He KNOWS this guy, and he's merciless.I suspect that this was made 'as live' - it has that intensity you got with long-take scenes shot in slightly constricted sets. There is a real feeling - SO rare in television - of watching a performance rather than a paste-up" - IMDB.
Written by Dennis Potter, directed by Alan Bridges and produced by Graeme McDonald. Broadcast on BBC1 at 9.20 pm on Thursday 14 October 1971.
Adrian Harris - John Le Mesurier
James - Jack Hedley
Simpson - Vincent Ball
Blake - Neil McCallum
Thomas - Jon Laurimore
Sir Arthur Harris - Lyndon Brook
Lady Emma - Diana Fairfax
Michaelov - Richard Marner
Written by Dennis Potter
Directed by Alan Bridges
Excellent review here:
forgottentelev...
"This play took Potter into a thematic area which he had not previously explored - the murky world of Cold War espionage..."
And another review:
"Adrian is a withdrawn child, self-conscious over his prolonged stutter - one that is cruelly ridiculed by an unsympathetic English teacher at boarding school, and that re-emerges at a climactic point. Are we really so shocked that a child of the English establishment should betray it when he has been given so little to endear him to it? Yet the verse he struggles to recite remains in his mind decades on, and an idealised vision England still holds a place in his heart. It’s symbolised in the painting he has smuggled with him to Moscow, and it’s telling that in his drunken stupor he collapses directly in front of it, as the play flashes back to easier times."
tomlikestowatc...
Trivia:
Based on the same real life events as Another Country (1984), Cambridge Spies (2003), History in Faces: Cambridge Five (2011), Philby, Burgess and Maclean (1977), A Question of Attribution (1991), An Englishman Abroad (1983), Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011), Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (1979), Blade on the Feather (1980), Blunt (1987), The Jigsaw Man (1983) and influenced the source novels of The Fourth Protocol (1987), The Innocent (1993) and others works such as A Different Loyalty (2004) and Olding (2019), even in minor form like in The Imitation Game (2014).

[@valerieHamilton-wt3jf]

Great film footage - the Jarrow marchers, bless them 🙂‍↕️

[@carolsimon9203]

An interesting twist at the end...
Vintage Potter and a superlative performance by le Mesurier .
Many thanks for uploading this gem ❤

[@FoogouFilms]

Thank you too!

[@suzymac27]

❤❤❤❤❤❤😊😊😊😊

[@tim.timothy.brennan]

Great to watch this superb acting thanks.

[@ros8986]

I just keep thinking Le Mesurier was thrilled to get this part.