Sleepers

Loved this mini series and unfortunately do not have a good tape of it. Does anyone know if it is available anywhere on DVD or VHS--it should be! one of the best ever from BBC shown on US PBS. I thought the casting, plot, and mix of humor and serious jabs at the warriors of the cold war was great. With all the crud out on DVD it is hard to believe that this is not available somewhere somehow for purchase. I saw it years ago, has it been re-broadcast more recently on any PBS stations, or does BBC America re-run it ever? Now that WETA Radio in DC has sold out and gone totally "news" and talk there is a desperate need for good entertainment like this mini series. I have searched for years and would greatly appreciate any help in procuring a copy of this somehow.

This mini series is endlessly entertaining, whether you're a student of the Cold War, an Anglophile, or an espionage buff. It captures brilliantly the guarded peace developing among the world's remaining superpowers in the last days of the Soviet Union, and it makes you howl with laughter in the process.

Havers and Clarke (who was also a dialogue coach on the project) play Soviet agents sent underground as sleepers to the UK in the Mod '60s by enigmatic KGB guru Gough. Now it's the 1980s, glasnost has begun the Soviet thaw, Gough is shut up in a mental hospital, and Havers and Clarke have become very British indeed--the former a successful investment banker, and the latter a union boss in northern England (married and with children, no less). The sleeper project is discovered in Moscow, and the two agents are contacted, much to their dismay (as Havers observes, why should he give up his posh and comfortable life "for a bowl of red cabbage and a bed-sit in Vladivostok?"). Hilarity ensues, as an uptight KGB agent (a woman who makes Ninotchka come off like Pollyanna) is dispatched to bring the wayward sleepers home. Add in a KGB contact who looks just like Gorbachev (though named Chekhov--"No relation"), classic odd-couple pairings, a suspicious mother-in-law, and Britain's World Cup star Bobby Charlton, and you've got something worth watching, my friend.

Every couple of years or so, I send off a message to the BBC, recommending this title for VHS or DVD release, and I always get a kind note thanking me for my interest. So far, no result. I can't even begin to imagine why. Should this surface again on television, run for your VCRs and DVRs!

This miniseries regarding the cold war is probable the best you are ever likely to see. It is both serious and hilarious at the same time. The stars are all excellent, particularly Michael Gough. I do not know of any other serious-comedy that can hold your attention. make you laugh; keep you under suspense, all at the same time.

A clever concept about people left behind - except that they aren't: they have left behind their past, and when they are called upon to act roles ordained in the past, they simply won't. A witty and human subversion of the Ian Fleming/John Le Carre spy story, a tale of what goes right and what goes wrong, of cultural clashes, class warfare (remember that?), identity, politics, greed and happiness. The cultural artefact (I can't spoil it) that sends the storyline spinning into a new orbit is chosen with wit and imagination. Nigel Havers has rarely been so funny although Warren Clarke has always been capable of dominating the screen in comedy like a working-class Jack Nicholson. A mini like no other - because it never flags in pace, intensity, observation or commentary.

This has everything: comedy, suspense, brilliant acting, and first-rate direction. Why on earth isn't it on video? It's a ten. Notice especially the casting. Marvelous. Nothing this good has appeared since on the tube!