A spy who drank himself into oblivion believes he betrayed his class, not his country — but which is worse?
Western journalists visit Moscow to interview Adrian Harris, a former controller in British intelligence who was also a double agent for the USSR. Harris believes in both Communism and Englishness, believing himself to have betrayed his class, but not his country. The press find these beliefs incompatible, and want to find out why he became a ‘traitor’. Harris is plagued by anxieties over both his actions and his upper-class childhood, and drinks to a state of collapse
Acting
Le Mesurier's trembling hands do what scripts cannot
Direction
Bridges traps you in rooms that feel like interrogations
Writing
Dennis Potter's dialogue weaponizes politeness
Director
Alan Bridges
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Shot on 35mm in a single studio with painted backdrops, giving Moscow the same artificiality as Harris's constructed identity.
Screened once in 1971, then buried for decades — the BBC considered it too sympathetic to a traitor during the Cold War.
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