Fifty Years of The Prisoner

The Prisoner is fifty years old. In television terms, that is very old. And yet somehow it retains its power to entrance, entertain, and - sometimes - to irritate. It's an eccentric, almost uncategorisable series, one that surely could only have been conceived and made in the 1960s, that decade of extraordinary creativity and innovation.

I am old enough to have watched the very first episode, the first time it was screened. And I can therefore remember the general astonishment created by the series. To understand this, one has to know the background. Patrick McGoohan, the star of the show, was already a big name. He'd played John Drake in the highly successful series Danger Man and was often talked of as a "natural" for the role of James Bond.

I know I watched and enjoyed Danger Man as a very small boy, but I can't remember any of the stories. I think it was a conventional thriller series about a secret agent. But I suppose I was expecting The Prisoner to be a sort of variation on Danger Man, and probably everyone else was. Instead we found ourselves watching a weird show in which McGoohan becomes trapped in a strange village, where he desperately tries to find out what is going on. It was all very odd. But it made for mesmeric viewing.

Part of the pleasure, for me, came (and still comes) from knowing the village from personal experience. In real life it's Portmeirion, a fantastic resort on a sheltered Welsh coastline that I've visited a good many times, and I always find it delightful. They make a great deal of the connection with The Prisoner, and for good reason. Although it infuriated the critics back in the 60s, it became a cult success, and has remained so ever since. Long may its mysteries continue to tantalise!

Robert Banks Stewart

With surprisingly little fanfare, Robert Banks Stewart recently published a thriller, The Hurricane's Tail. Why do I say 'surprisingly'? Well, the fact is that Mr Stewart might be described as one of the more successful crime writers of the past half-century. Yet I guess that although plenty of readers will recognise his name, they will not be quite sure why it seems so familiar.

The explanation is that the name of Robert Banks Stewart has appeared on our television screens countless times, as he has been a producer and screenplay writer of great distinction. I first became aware of him years ago, and he was involved with many of the great television series. In his early days he wrote scripts for the Edgar Wallace thriller series, as well as Danger Man, starring Patrick McGoohan. These were among the first crime shows I watched on the box when I was very young.

After that, the hits kept on coming. He wrote for Doctor Who and also for The Avengers - an episode featuring a parodic version of Mensa, of which his wife was a member. He created Shoestring (one of my all-time favourite TV detective shows), starring Trevor Eve, and when that came to an end, followed it up with the even more successful, if less quirky, Bergerac, starring John Nettles. What a CV!

I've been lucky enough to come into contact recently with this wonderful writer, and I asked him about the difference between writing for TV and writing a novel. He told me, "The thing you learn as a screenwriter...ist that economy is important. The picture tells the underlying story...to a certain extent." He found that with his novel, the dialogue came easily, but that he had to work much harder to make everything else convincing: "Funny, isn't it, on screen you don't leave a lot to the imagination. In  a book, huge chunks are down to the imagination of the reader." 

The pleasure of becoming acquainted with this legendary writer has prompted me to take another look at his work, and I'll be returning to Robert Banks Stewart's brilliant career in a future post. In the meantime, The Hurricane' s Tail is definitely worth a look.

Patrick McGoohan

The news of Patrick McGoohan’s death saddened me. I was also startled, though of course I should not have been, to learn that he was 80. I still think of him as the smouldering hero of two major television series of my childhood.

I first came across him when I was very young, after he became a household name through his portrayal of the secret agent John Drake in 'Danger Man'. I’ve not seen an episode since I was about ten, and no doubt the show would not look too exciting today. But I was enthralled, week after week, and so were millions of others. (The theme tune was very popular, too.)

When it was announced that McGoohan was appearing in a brand new thriller series, therefore, everyone paid attention. I was one of those who watched the first episode of ‘The Prisoner’, in which an unnamed agent (some people suggest it was Drake) is kidnapped after announcing his intention to quit. He finishes up in a mysterious village, where he is known as Number Six. Escape from the village is impossible.

The weirdness of ‘The Prisoner’ annoyed many people at the time. ‘Danger Man’ had been straightforward action, but this was a very surreal story-line, very 1960s, as if Kafka had collaborated with a scriptwriter from ‘The Avengers’. I enjoyed it, although like many others I was baffled by it. No wonder it became a cult. Incidentally, if anyone has never visited the real-life location of The Village, Port Meirion in North Wales, I can recommend it most strongly – a wonderful place to visit; it’s also good to stay at one of the hotels, for when the tourists are gone, you can wander around The Village undisturbed – very eerie, sometimes.

Later, I enjoyed McGoohan in both Ice Station Zebra (I was going through an Alistair MacLean phase at the time) and in 'Columbo'. I saw little of him after that, but I remain an admirer. His acting range wasn’t in the Alec Guinness class, but he was very good at what he did. He will be missed.