The Secret Agent

The Secret Agent based on Joseph Konrad's work of the same name, for me at least, is rather uninspiring and badly dated.

This series, on first view, feels like a "dull artifact" that expresses stale, somewhat paranoid sentiments, from a bygone era.

Unlike similar series, such as Reilly Ace of Spies, there's nothing overly exciting on offer here. Reilly beautifully captured the essence of an early period of political intrigue and built an enjoyable tale around it. By contrast, The Secret Agent, simply feels like a proxy for the exhumed opinions of long dead political elites, afraid of the Communist bogey man.

The acting in this series and production values, as is often the case in the UK, are of a high standard. Its not for me, the performances, that are in question, however. The whole proposition seems anachronistic, when filtered through 21st century eyes. The Secret Agent, might have worked as a satire or adapted to a comedic format but, as serous drama, to me, it feels like an absurdity. Five out of ten.

The first episode does start out rather slow and it has a lighthearted feel to it. Seeing Toby Jones in this type of role for the first time takes a bit of time to get use to ,but He does come through and gives a great performance.

A real stand out performance from Vicky McClure and the rest of the cast give a good performance too. By episode 2 it starts to get dark and much more enjoyable to watch.

Episode 3 is really good ,it takes some really dark twists and holds your interest .

The music really adds to the feel of it all, as does the great location scenes. I thought it well acted and produced, it leaves you wanting more.

I'm puzzled by the reviews that claim all of Conrad's brilliant story have been abandoned. Utterly untrue. All the main points of the original story are here. The betrayals, the ethical compromises, the cowardice. Not a single one missing. What had changed is how the story is told. Conrad jumped back and forth, a device that works better on writing than on TV. There are always some compromise made when covering a written story to a screen of any size. Those made here seen more than reasonable to me. The result is a thoughtful carefully constructed story that resists the urge to pick up the tempo just for the sake of a little "excitement". Some will find the pace slow, but it builds from the meaningless pretense of the characters lives and the mundane tempo of real life.

Some lovely performances by the whole cast. No one is cast as either superhero or supervillain. These are ordinary people of no great distinction, no matter thier place in life. Both evil and justice are flawed and banal.

This series is based in the Conrad short novel about a bumbling anarchist ring in London one of whom also operatrs for the Russian embassy in London.

What unfolds as a further bumbled terror attack is actually a double decoy to firce the British to tighten up their security which is threatening the security if the Russian state from the threat of anarchy.

This double decoy is what creates the confusion snd the complicated early part if the plot.

In essence its more of a satirical perspective on state and anarchy rather than a tale of international Espionage.

Despite the prominence of descent British TV actors, the series is flawed by the weakness of the storyline and doesn't quite deliver to the audience what they expect.

Joseph Conrad's novel, 'The Secret Agent', is justly acclaimed, a compact and bitter satire nominally about anarchist terrorism but in fact about the wretchedness of the human condition: while ordinary people labour and suffer, we talk about principles and love but will in reality sacrifice anything for an easy life. With hardly a superfluous word, it could easily be adapted into a 90 minute film; but this adaptation lasts three hours, and is slow-paced and boring. Not only that, but the padding serves to undermine the original purpose to no beneficial effect. One of the great characters in the book is the Professor, an extremist (with all the best lines) who asserts he will give everything for the cause, even down to blowing himself up with a bomb he carries on his person at all times should the police come to arrest him. But no actual cause is ever sufficiently revolutionary to earn the Professor's support, and as we see when he is confronted by the stupid, cowardly policeman Heat, his supposed willingness to cause carnage is sufficiently strong to ensure that no-one is ever likely to put him to the test. But in this adaptation, Heat is brave and humane, and he confronts the Professor only for the Professor's bomb to fail to explode when he tries to detonate it, developments that completely miss the point. It's a particular shame to see the usually excellent Vicky McClure stilted and unable to save the story. Sometimes it seems as if those responsible for adapting a story have utterly failed to understand what it is really about; and this series is one such example.