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Underground > Film, TV & Theatre >

Cambridge Spies

22:20 / 27.07.03

Ok, I appear to have been the only person in the Western World to have watched and enjoyed this show. I'm interested in other people's reactions to it, both as drama and as history. I don't know an awful lot about the episode, although I've read about it a bit afterwards. Seems like an almost obviously Barbelithic series though - idealistic young followers of Marxist dogma prepared to go to almost any lengths to try and make the world a better place, even to the extent of being traitors to their country - even while at their most priveleged. Among them a gay art critic and hush-hush man (and keeper of the Queen's paintings), the head of counter-intelligence at MI5, a bohemian Scot and a drunkard, cottaging BBC Queen. I'm actually particularly interested in people's reactions to what seems to me a particularly obvious attempt to make them highly charismatic and sympathetic figures. Is this a mockery of history or a legitimate representation? Myth-making or Mythtake (sorry)....

06:38 / 28.07.03

Did no one but me see it?

07:08 / 28.07.03

I saw it (except for the last episode)...I just haven't got all that much to say about it - I don't know enough about the episode to critique the series in a historically sound fashion. As drama I thought it was reasonable, though it did drag a lot in places. Just ended up feeling really sorry for all of them...and, as such thought it did an alright job of making them three dimensional-ish, esp. Blunt and thingy...er, the other gay one (my favourite character, but can never remember his name)?

The really weird thing is that the bloke who played Blunt was Prince Caspian in the BBC TV series. I've had to be told that twice and then had to have it proved to me, both times, 'cause it strikes me as so weird.

Tryphena Absent

07:57 / 28.07.03

I saw the first episode of this and quite enjoyed it but unfortunately missed the rest. I thought the characters were sympathetic, certainly naive and rightfully charismatic. The political context was interesting but the individuals really stuck the show together. It struck me as a typical English, BBC dramatisation but I know little about the actual history. So yeah, good episode that I can't really comment on.