Traitor (Play for Today)

Last updated

"Traitor"
Play for Today episode
Episode no.Series 2
Episode 1
Directed by Alan Bridges
Written by Dennis Potter
Produced by Graeme MacDonald
Original air date14 October 1971 (1971-10-14)
Episode chronology
 Previous
"Everybody Say Cheese"
Next 
"Edna, the Inebriate Woman"

"Traitor" is the first episode of the second season of the British BBC anthology TV series Play for Today . The episode was a television play that was originally broadcast on 14 October 1971. "Traitor" was written by Dennis Potter, directed by Alan Bridges, produced by Graeme MacDonald, and starred John Le Mesurier as Adrian Harris, a character loosely based on Kim Philby. Le Mesurier's performance won him the British Academy Television Award for Best Actor in 1972. [1]

Contents

Plot

Western journalists visit Moscow to interview Adrian Harris, a former controller in British intelligence who was also a double agent for the Soviet Union. Harris believes in both Communism and Englishness, believing himself to have betrayed his class, but not his country. The press find these beliefs incompatible, and want to find out why he became a ‘traitor’. Harris is plagued by anxieties over both his actions and his upper-class childhood, and drinks to a state of collapse. [2]

Cast

Reception

Better known for comedic roles, Le Mesurier's casting was a brave move, one which initially concerned the actor who "was very, very scared" that "he wouldn’t be able to pull it off". [2] Le Mesurier would later call the role 'the best part I ever had on TV'. [1] While reviews of the play were mixed, critics were unanimous in their praise for Le Mesurier and he won the British Academy Television Award for Best Actor in 1972. [2]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Peter Falk</span> American actor (1927–2011)

Peter Michael Falk was an American film and television actor, comedian, singer and television director and producer. He is best known for his role as Lieutenant Columbo on the NBC/ABC series Columbo, for which he won four Primetime Emmy Awards and a Golden Globe Award (1973). In 1996, TV Guide ranked Falk No. 21 on its 50 Greatest TV Stars of All Time list. He received a posthumous star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2013.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tony Hancock</span> English comedian and actor

Anthony John Hancock was an English comedian and actor.

A British sitcom or a Britcom is a situational comedy programme produced for British television.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Richard Harris</span> Irish actor and singer (1930–2002)

Richard St John Francis Harris was an Irish actor and singer. Having studied at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art, he rose to prominence as an icon of the British New Wave. He received numerous accolades including the Cannes Film Festival Award for Best Actor, and a Grammy Award. In 2020, he was listed at number 3 on The Irish Times's list of Ireland's greatest film actors.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hattie Jacques</span> English actress (1922–1980)

Hattie Jacques was an English comedy actress of stage, radio and screen. She is best known as a regular of the Carry On films, where she typically played strict, no-nonsense characters, but was also a prolific television and radio performer.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Le Mesurier</span> English actor (1912–1983)

John Le Mesurier was an English actor. He is probably best remembered for his comedic role as Sergeant Arthur Wilson in the BBC television situation comedy Dad's Army (1968–1977). A self-confessed "jobbing actor", Le Mesurier appeared in more than 120 films across a range of genres, normally in smaller supporting parts.

<i>Jeeves and Wooster</i> British comedy-drama television series (1990–1993)

Jeeves and Wooster is a British comedy-drama television series adapted by Clive Exton from P. G. Wodehouse's "Jeeves" stories. It aired on the ITV network from 22 April 1990 to 20 June 1993, with the last series nominated for a British Academy Television Award for Best Drama Series. Set in the UK and the US in an unspecified period between the late 1920s and the 1930s, the series starred Hugh Laurie as Bertie Wooster, an affable young gentleman and member of the idle rich, and Stephen Fry as Jeeves, his highly intelligent and competent valet. Bertie and his friends, who are mainly members of the Drones Club, are extricated from all manner of societal misadventures by the indispensable Jeeves.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Patrick McGoohan</span> Irish actor, writer, director and producer (1928–2009)

Patrick Joseph McGoohan was an American-born Irish actor, director, screenwriter, and producer of film, television, and theatre. Born in New York City to Irish parents, he was raised in Ireland and England, began his career in England during the 1950s and became well known for the titular role, secret agent John Drake in the ITC espionage programme Danger Man (1960–1968). He then produced and created The Prisoner (1967–1968), a surrealistic television series in which he featured as Number Six, an unnamed British intelligence agent who is abducted and imprisoned in a mysterious coastal village.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Edward Woodward</span> English actor (1930-2009)

Edward Albert Arthur Woodward, OBE was an English actor and singer. After graduating from the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, he began his career on stage. Throughout his career, he appeared in productions in both the West End of London and on Broadway in New York City. He came to wider attention from 1967 in the title role of the British television spy drama Callan, earning him the 1970 British Academy Television Award for Best Actor.

<i>Play for Today</i> British television anthology series

Play for Today is a British television anthology drama series, produced by the BBC and transmitted on BBC1 from 1970 to 1984. During the run, more than three hundred programmes, featuring original television plays, and adaptations of stage plays and novels, were transmitted. The individual episodes were between fifty and a hundred minutes in duration. A handful of these plays, including Rumpole of the Bailey, subsequently became television series in their own right.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jared Harris</span> British/Irish actor

Jared Francis Harris is a British actor. His roles include Lane Pryce in the drama series Mad Men (2009–2012), for which he was nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series; King George VI in the historical drama series The Crown (2016–2017); and Valery Legasov in the miniseries Chernobyl (2019), for which he won the BAFTA TV Award for Best Actor and was nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Limited Series or Movie.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Colin Welland</span> British actor and screenwriter

Colin Welland was an English actor and screenwriter. He won the BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role for his performance as Mr Farthing in Kes (1969) and the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay for writing Chariots of Fire (1981).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Michael Knowles (actor)</span> British actor (born 1937)

Michael Sydney Knowles is a British actor and scriptwriter who is best known for his roles in BBC sitcoms written by Jimmy Perry and David Croft.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Keith Barron</span> English actor (1934–2017)

Keith Barron was an English actor and television presenter who appeared in films and on television from 1961 until 2017. His television roles included the police drama The Odd Man, the sitcom Duty Free, and Gregory Wilmot in Upstairs, Downstairs.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ray McAnally</span> Irish actor

Ray McAnally was an Irish actor. He was the recipient of three BAFTA Awards in the late 1980s: two BAFTA Film Awards for Best Supporting Actor, and a BAFTA Television Award for Best Actor for A Very British Coup in 1989. In 2020, he was ranked at number 34 on The Irish Times's list of Ireland's greatest film actors.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Johnny Harris (actor)</span> English actor, screenwriter, producer and director

Johnny Harris is an English actor, screenwriter, producer and director.

<i>Dads Army</i> British TV sitcom (1968–1977)

Dad's Army is a British television sitcom about the United Kingdom's Home Guard during the Second World War. It was written by Jimmy Perry and David Croft, and originally broadcast on BBC1 from 31 July 1968 to 13 November 1977. It ran for nine series and 80 episodes in total; a feature film released in 1971, a stage show and a radio version based on the television scripts were also produced. The series regularly gained audiences of 18 million viewers and is still shown internationally.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Clive Dunn</span> English actor (1920–2012)

Clive Robert Benjamin Dunn was an English actor. Although he was only 48 and one of the youngest cast members, he was cast in a role many years his senior, as the elderly Lance Corporal Jones in the BBC sitcom Dad's Army, which ran for nine series and 80 episodes between 1968 and 1977.

John Le Mesurier was an English actor who performed in many mediums of light entertainment, including film, radio and theatre. Le Mesurier's career spanned from 1934 until his death in 1983. He is best remembered for his role as Sergeant Arthur Wilson in the BBC situation comedy Dad's Army, between 1968 and 1977.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Michael Cole (writer)</span> British writer

Michael Cole was a British writer. He created a number of children's programmes from the 1970s to the 1990s, including Alphabet Castle, Heads and Tails and Ragtime, for which he won a Society of Film and Television Award for Best Children's Programme. Together with his wife Joanne Cole, he created Bod, originally published as four books in 1965 and made into a TV show in the 1970s, as well as Fingerbobs and Gran.

References

  1. 1 2 Angelini, Sergio (2013). "Traitor (1971)". screenonline.org.uk. Retrieved 7 February 2014.
  2. 1 2 3 Rolinson, David (4 November 2010). "Traitor (1971)". britishtelevisiondrama.org.uk. Retrieved 7 February 2014.