Patrick McGoohan’s exuberant, puzzling The Prisoner avoided capture and re-programming by the powers that be for 40-odd years. But now the makeover merchants have finally collared this cherished, 1967 cult adventure and it finds itself back on ITV primetime screens, re-charged and recast for the 21st century. Be seeing you, indeed.
Only a fool would suggest re-recording Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, or trying to recreate Geoff Hurst’s World Cup-winning hattrick. Yet film and TV producers can never resist attempting to re-bottle screen magic, and so a series as indelibly of its time as The Prisoner gets its refit.
Five Years in the Making
Is the 2010 model any good? It’s been five years in gestation, with first Sky and then ITV joining American outfit AMC, the people behind Mad Men, in developing it.
Big money and production values have been thrown at this six-parter, with a goodish cast pulled in. Ian McKellen as Number Two and Ruth Wilson as 313 are the good bits, while James Caviezel as Number Six is OK. However, when compared with McGoohan, the star and creator of the original, he comes up a long way short in charisma. Handsome, but impassive and ordinary.
Portmeirion, the toy town Welsh resort of the original, has been jettisoned in favour of an equally strange German colonial resort in Swakopmund, Namibia. Also gone is the wonderful opening credit sequence in which McGoohan’s character is apparently abducted from London.
Caviezel Stranded in the Desert
Caviezel’s character wakes in the desert, oblivious to how and why he is there. He sees an old man being chased by unseen pursuers with dogs. The old man dies and the new arrival makes his way to the Village.
The premise is enticing, the Kafkaesque, Truman Show-esque nightmare of waking in a strange place with no name, no way out, but where everyone knows your number.
Sinister McKellen
McKellen is gentle and sinister – “There is no New York. There is only the Village.” Wilson is beautiful and perverse – “You’re a free man.” Number Six befriends a waitress who seems to share his conviction – and that of the dead old man – that there is life outside of the Village. Everyone seems to be brainwashed but Number Six is unsettling the natives with his determination to get out.
McGoohan’s coup de television ended enigmatically, disappointing millions of viewers who jammed the switchboards wanting to know what the pennyfarthings and dwarf butler was all about. This update is said to have a neater, logical conclusion.
Dull Number Six
But while it looks good, it lacks heart and purpose, and is not helped by having a stolid, dullish Number Six. It's unlikely that fans will remember it in 40 years' time. By all means make a drama delving into fears about surveillance society, but why not come up with something entirely new and distinctive?
Why asset-strip the Sixties when the best modern shows – Mad Men, The Wire, The Sopranos, Lost (far more disorientating than the new Prisoner) – are innovative and newly mind-blowing, man.
The Prisoner, ITV1, starts Saturday 17 April 9.30pm
- Six/Michael Jim Caviezel
- Two Ian McKellen
- 4-15/Lucy Hayley Atwell
- 313 Ruth Wilson
- 147 Lennie James
- 11-12 Jamie Campbell Bower
- M2 Rachel Blake
- 909 Vincent Regan
- 16 Jeffery R Smith
- 554 Jessica Haines
- 1891 Sara Stewart
- 1955 Warrick Grier
- Winking Woman Leila Hendriques
- 29-44 Norman Antstey
- 23-90 Hanie Barnard
- 37927 David Butler
- 80-88 Wilmien Rossouw
- 1100 Lauren Dasnev
- 10-81 Grant Swanby
- Written by Bill Gallagher
- Director Nick Hurran
- Producer Trevor Hopkins
- Executive Producers Michele Buck, Rebecca Keane, Damien Timmer, Bill Gallagher
- Co-Producer Bill Shephard
- Director of Photography Florian Hoffmeister
- Editors Yan Miles, John Richard, Paul Garrick
- Production Designer Michael Pickwoad
- Make Up and Hair Designer Nadine Prigge
- Costume Designers Jane Clive, Anna Sheppard
- Script Editors Francis Flannery, Jennie Scanlan
- Head of Production Gail Kennett
- Casting Director Kate Rhodes James
- Sound Supervisor & Effects Editor Lee Walpole
- Sound Mixer Stuart Hilliker
Robin Jarossi - London-based journalist and editor specialising in TV, sport and books. I was the editor of 'Cable Guide' and have worked at 'Radio ...
