James Walton

Too in thrall to today’s dogmas: ITV1’s A Spy Among Friends reviewed

Plus: Sky Max's Then You Run is a deranged blast

Damian Lewis as Nicholas Elliott and Guy Pearce as Kim Philby  
issue 15 July 2023

In 2014, Ben Macintyre presented a BBC2 documentary based on his book A Spy Among Friends: Kim Philby and the Great Betrayal. The programme managed to shed new light on a familiar but still irresistible story by concentrating on Philby’s relationship with his old chum – and fellow Cambridge man – Nicholas Elliott. Elliott was sent in 1963 by the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS) to question Philby in Beirut where Philby had become the Observer’s foreign correspondent after a long and successful career betraying his countrymen to the Soviets. Elliott did elicit some sort of confession, but a few days later, Philby absconded to Moscow. So had Elliott helped with the escape a) to save his friend; b) to spare British blushes by avoiding a public trial; or c) had he not had a hand in it at all?

The script feels as much in thrall to our class assumptions as the post-war British establishment was to theirs

Ultimately, Macintyre didn’t commit himself – presumably on the solid grounds that nobody really knows. There was, however, no mistaking his central point: that the unshakable class assumptions of the British establishment made them unable to believe ‘a chap like us’ could be a wrong ’un. Amplifying this point were some slightly half-hearted dramatic reconstructions in which Elliott and Philby demonstrated how posh they were.

Now the same book is given more full-throated dramatic treatment, and an all-star cast, in ITV1’s A Spy among Friends, also available on ITVX (although, in my experience, this is not so much a streaming service as an endlessly buffering one). So it is that here we have Damian Lewis as Elliott and Guy Pearce as Philby demonstrating how posh they were – in Sunday’s opener by such cunning methods as wearing cricket whites, exuding patrician unflappability and drinking pink gin in London clubs.

GIF Image

Disagree with half of it, enjoy reading all of it

TRY 3 MONTHS FOR $5
Our magazine articles are for subscribers only. Start your 3-month trial today for just $5 and subscribe to more than one view

Comments

Join the debate for just $5 for 3 months

Be part of the conversation with other Spectator readers by getting your first three months for $5.

Already a subscriber? Log in