Before The Bourne Identity and The Tourist – with their amnesiac heroes – there was The Prisoner. Before Twin Peaks and Lost – with their impenetrable plots – there was The Prisoner. Before The X-Files and Game of Thrones, much-loved series whose finales were widely derided – there was The Prisoner, the most controversial and infamous cult of them all whose influence can be seen throughout pop culture, taking in Bond films, Angel Heart and Network among others, but which can also be considered the most ludicrous nonsense ever to make it to the small screen.
The series was the brainchild of the Anglo-American actor Patrick McGoohan, star of the 1960s tv spy series Danger Man. By 1966, McGoohan had tired of the role and so high was his stock with producers that for its follow-up he was offered what amounted to a blank cheque by the immensely powerful Lew Grade, head of ITC Entertainment and the most influential man in the world of British television at that time. The result was The Prisoner, memorably filmed in Wales in the beautiful folly-cum-village of Portmeirion, and best remembered for a scene in which McGoohan is chased along a beach by what appears to be an enormous white ball. If none of that resonates then the archly knowing Who Is No. 1? is certainly not for you. If it does, however, then run, don’t walk, to Hoxton’s Courtyard Theatre to see the Foundry Group’s production of Brian Mitchell and Joseph Nixon’s hugely entertaining new play which tells – more or less – the story of The Prisoner, from inception to cancellation, underpinned throughout by Ron Grainer’s theme and incidental music for the original series.
Heading the cast is Murray Simon, uncanny as the volatile McGoohan, channelling the actor’s intensity and bombast as he intimidates Lew Grade and crumbling slowly under the steadily increasing pressure of writing and starring in the series. As the cigar-fuelled Grade and other characters, Ross Gurney-Randall is superb, duped into backing McGoohan and championing him with US TV executives as the actor’s resolutely resolution-less thriller munched its way through dollar after dollar. Playing the executives – as well as Prisoner actors Kenneth Griffith and Leo McKern – are Robert Cohen and Brian Mitchell, one half of the writing team behind the play and as its director, responsible for the rather uneven pace of the production. Nevertheless, and despite its focus on an admittedly obscure piece of television history, Who Is No. 1? offers a window into a time when “the box” was the glue that held the nation together. It deserves a wider audience than is likely to be its lot.
Review by Louis Mazzini