The Real Spies Among Friends

Following the recent dramatisation of Kim Philby's defection, 'A Spy Among Friends', this documentary provides a brisk retelling of the actual facts. For many, it's a now familiar story, but its efficiently told here. The striking thing (and one which the drama also focussed on) is how the British establishment was unwilling to acknowlege, first to itself and then later to the public, that its own members had betrayed their country. The diverse characters of the four (famous) spies makes the story so intriguing; John Cairncross, later outed as "the fifth man", is not mentioned. It's also pretty amazing that Philby was exposed, denied the allegations on television, and then went back to working for the secret service until finally forced out twelve years later. Big secrets were betrayed; yet you do get the idea that a lot of this was game playing for its own sake, and not a game that anyone actually won.

I have given this a 10 because it was interesting and gave a complete overview of the Cambridge spy network that was uncovered. No mention of a fifth man, or sixth, it just concentrated on the facts.

This is unlike the accompanying drama Spies Among Friends which I found overly long, drawn out and flawed by tokenism (the invention of characters).

Roger Allam is an excellent narrator and the historians and subject experts were interesting and informed.

The "old boys network" can never have had a worst moment than the covering up, or just ignoring, the misdemeanors of their chums. Asonishing that Antony Blunt was outed in the 1960s and it was hushed up. As he was the Queen's art curator at the time, this really didn't do her any favours in retrospect.

It took Maggie Thatcher to out him publicly in the 1980s.