Traitor

"Traitor" is one of a number of plays inspired by the notorious "Cambridge spy ring" who acted as double agents for the Soviet Union during the Cold War. Others include Julian Mitchell's stage play "Another Country", later made into a film, and Alan Bennett's "An Englishman Abroad" and "A Question of Attribution". What shocked British society most about the spy ring was not so much the treachery of its members as the fact that most of them were from well-off Establishment families and educated at the country's most prestigious schools. (Working-class spies such as John Vassall, Melita Norwood and the members of the Portland spy ring never achieved the same notoriety).

"Another Country" dealt with the schooldays of a thinly disguised Guy Burgess, referred to in the play as "Guy Bennett", and "An Englishman Abroad" is a portrait of Burgess during his days living in exile in Moscow. "Traitor" is also set in Moscow; the main character, Adrian Harris, is partly based Burgess and partly on Kim Philby. (Unlike Burgess and Philby, both Cambridge men, however, Harris was educated at Oxford). A group of Western journalists visit Moscow to interview Harris, a former Foreign Office official who defected before he could be arrested as a Soviet agent. Scenes of the interview are intercut with scenes of Harris's unhappy upper-class childhood, when he was largely ignored by his parents, patronised by the masters at his public school and bullied by his schoolmates. Mitchell was to suggest that Bennett (who like the real Guy Burgess was gay) spied for the Russians not because he was a convinced Communist but as an act of revenge against the British Establishment for rejecting him on account of his sexual orientation. This is not a theme explored here; we never learn whether Harris is homosexual (like Burgess) or heterosexual (like Philby).

Harris is played by John Le Mesurier, who is of course best known for playing Sergeant Wilson in "Dad's Army". Le Mesurier was something of a comedy specialist, so he was cast against type here. Nevertheless, he was to call the role "the best part I ever had on TV", and relished the chance to take the leading role in a serious drama, giving an outstanding performance for which he was to win a BAFTA Television Award for Best Actor.

This was the second play written by Dennis Potter for the BBC's series "Play for Today"; the first had been "Angels Are So Few", broadcast as part of the previous season. (Potter had also written contributions for "Play for Today"'s predecessor, "The Wednesday Play"). Themes of betrayal and childhood are common in Potter's work, and both elements play an important part in this play. Harris tries to defend himself in political terms, insisting that he may have betrayed his class but never his country, and insisting that everything he did was motivated by his belief in communism. For Potter, however, the child is father to the man, and he sees the roots of Harris's treachery as being as much psychological as ideological. Harris's his hatred of the English upper classes is clearly rooted in his miserable childhood. Le Mesurier plays him here as a weak individual, unable to cope with life without the crutch of alcohol; he is normally seen with a glass in his hand, and his attempts to justify himself to the journalists become more and more incoherent as he gets more and more drunk. (Both Burgess and Philby were alcoholics, and their alcoholism became worse after their defection to Russia).

Potter said that he wrote for television because he saw it as a democratic medium, able to reach a wider and socially more diverse audience than the novel or the theatre, literary forms he regarded as primarily middle class. In the short term, that was probably correct, but in the longer term it means that much of his work has been locked away unseen in the BBC's vaults. (Mercifully, little has actually been lost to the Beeb's short-sighted policy of wiping videotapes to reuse them). Fortunately, BBC4 recently gave an airing to "Traitor", giving us an opportunity to view this powerful drama more than fifty years after it was originally made. 8/10.

Acclaimed playwright Dennis Potter's own thinly veiled political opinions are never far from the centre of this potently portrayed depiction of a former spy giving an interview to some journalists from the relative safety of his new Moscow home many years after his defection. "Harris" (John Le Mesurier) is a sorry state of a man, drinking heavily and living the life of a recluse embittered by his memories of childhood. His was a privileged upbringing in the upper echelons of a British society that saw him steadily come to resent the class that reared and nurtured him. He was ripe for conversion to the Soviet cause and with his career of public school, military, Foreign Office all mapped out neatly before him, his value was predictable and guaranteed. His three inquisitors are scathing in their disdain of the man, but as the whisky takes it's toll, we start to realise that there was/is more to the man's than just a sad and lonely old drunk. It's for that more sophisticated characterisation that Le Mesurier is to be commended, especially since it cannot be a million miles from his own now publicly acknowledged private life. "Harris" rants and raves but there emerges a purpose to this ostensibly crazed verbiage, and with Jack Hedley and Neil McCallum pressing their questions, plying him with more booze and flashing their cameras in his face all too frequently, the tension mounts to what could be quite an explosive denouement. Will it end that way, though? Will it ever end at all for "Harris"? It's tightly cast with plenty of desperate dialogue and an increasingly emotional performance to keep it compelling for an hour. Well worth a watch.

This is one of the most memorable single acting performances I have seen in 50 years of watching the box.

Le Mesurier is simply outstanding. Dennis Potter's script certainly gives le Mesurier something decent to do, of course: it's a gift to an actor. But this particular actor makes a meal of it, breaking down before our eyes. Such an apparently mannered performer, so familiar to us all from "Dad's Army" -in this, he simply does familiar things in a slightly different way, to devastating effect. Manners and breeding, and he's somehow so SEEDY. One would never say that le Mesurier was 'wasted' in comedy, but it's splendid to see just how deep-beneath-the-skin he can go, and with such total control. Technique working in service of insight. He KNOWS this guy, and he's merciless.

I suspect that this was made 'as live' - it has that intensity you got with long-take scenes shot in slightly constricted sets. There is a real feeling - SO rare in television - of watching a performance rather than a paste-up.