Plot summary
This 12-part mini series was directed by Ken Grieve and Patrick Lau; Deighton’s book was adapted for screen by John Howlett and follows the plots of the three books pretty much to the letter: the discovery of the mole; Fiona's flight from London to Moscow; the turning of Erich Stinnes and then the dramatic end-game in Berlin, when Bernard inadvertantly plays the pawn in a Kremlin powergame. For more about the books on which it is based, click here; go to this page to see some a map of the places where the story takes place in Berlin. To find out about the soundtrack, go here.
There is one significant difference in the screenplay - which does work dramatically on-screen in helping move along the initial storyline. The first 40 minutes of the series goes back to 1978, and Bernard's escape from Poland with the help of members of the Brahms network. In the book, this back story is introduced intermittently. In the TV series, it frames the story right from the start, making more of Bernard's status as an ex-field guy and his reluctance to move from his safe desk in London to the dangerous streets of East Berlin.
Notes on the TV adaptation
This was at the time the highest-priced TV mini-series, with a budget of £8 million, much of it spent on location filming. It also employed a good range of quality British and German actors, so the omens appeared to be right that this would be a hit. It was received well, critically - Ian Holm, who plays Bernad Samson, went on to receive a BAFTA nomination for best actor (and the series also received a nomination for best film editing) and was promoted heavily by Granada TV and ITC as one of their hit autumn series. Click here to see how the drama was given front-page coverage in TV Times magazine, the leading listings title, in October 1988
The adaptation is pretty faithful, but perhaps a weakness is that in covering all three of the books, it ended up at nearly fifteen hours of broadcast programming. That required a lot of the pre-Christmas TV audience on ITV (not, one would have thought, its natural station) and clearly, many didn't last the pace. Deighton clearly didn't share the producer's and the channel's enthusiasm for the show and bought all the rights to the series to prevent re-transmission. Perhaps he knew something; it was in the end a ratings disaster for ITV (the main commercial channel in the UK). Copies were available for hire in some UK video shops but this series has never been shown again, which is a shame. Granada TV no longer holds the copyright, which has reverted to Deighton, who it is understood still will not release a commercial version. Bootleg copies are available from time to time online.
Having said that, the twelve parts did give the screenwriter scope for developing the key characters and plot lines. What does come across is that the directors wanted to demonstrate that all spies have a domestic and personal hinterland, from which they never can divorce their work. Significant chapters of the books are missing, but I think overall it develops key relationships well.
Of particular note are the extent to which the director plays up the close relationship between Bernard and Werner - how they both look out for each other against enemies from both sides of the wall - and the lengths to which Bernard will go to wind up and annoy his boss Dicky Cruyer, who despite being portrayed as a bit of a twit is shown to be clearly the master of the dark arts of office politics which Deighton portrays him as in the books.
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