A Spy Among Friends (UTV, 9pm) has been hiding in the long grass for several months, having initially debuted on ITVX, the British broadcaster’s new streaming service. You can see why ITV was so keen for it to be part of the ITVX launch slate. It has two heavyweights in Damian Lewis and Guy Pearce. And it is based on a real-life tale of skulduggery in the British intelligence services – one so murky John le Carré feels like Mamma Mia! by comparison.
That real story is of the Cambridge spy ring and Kim Philby (Pearce). He was the Soviet double agent who breezed through British high society by dint of cut-glass accent and blue blood connections. The problem is that the series, adapted from Ben Macintyre’s non-fiction book of the same name, is so determined to be the anthesis of James Bond that it arrives swaddled in postwar gloom.
The good news is the action picks up further into the six-part series. Initially, though, this is heavy going that demands of the viewer two things in short supply nowadays: patience and attention (best leave your phone upstairs, this very much isn’t background TV).
The action opens in the aftermath of Philby taking flight after he is suspected of passing on secrets to the Soviets. He first goes to Beirut, where his clubbable old pal Nicholas Elliott (Lewis) sets off to bring him in. But Philby never comes home and instead flees, finally fetching up in Moscow (where he saw out his days). Did he give Elliott the slip? Or did his friend conspire in the traitor’s escape?
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Flashbacks to Philby’s grotty flat in Beirut are interspersed with Elliott’s testimony to MI5 agent Lily Thomas (Anna Maxwell Martin). Unimpressed by Elliott’s Bertie Wooster-vibes, Thomas – a composite character based on several agents – represents Britain’s coming wave of social change.
She’s working class and got to where she is through sheer graft. That’s in contrast to the privileged Elliott and Philby of the more upper-crust MI6, for whom spying is just a grown-up game of cops and robbers.
Pearce and Lewis have chemistry as fast friends forced to go through the exceedingly ungentlemanly motions of being enemies. Pearce somehow makes wearing a woollen pullover look like an acting master class, while Lewis is a ball of rumpled energy.
It’s just a shame the first episode is frustratingly slow. Do stay with it over the coming weeks, though. A Spy Among Friends never goes entirely Bond. But it does expand into a fascinating portrayal of Britain at a time when well-connected chaps were waking up to discover they were a lot less essential than they thought.
