Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10
Cast: Tom Hughes, Jonathan Aris, Brian Cox, Victoria Hamilton, Shaun Dooley, Paul Ritter, Chloe Pirrie, Rachel Stirling, Zana Marjanovic, Yevgeni Sitokhin, Judy Parfitt, Marcel Lures, Tim Bentinck, Gemma Chan, Jay Simpson, Anton Lesser, Craig Conway, Scott Handy, Richard McCabe, Alistair Petrie, Steven Mackintosh.
Espionage is not a new game, nor is one that is as sophisticated as many would have believe and yet it still one that captures the imagination time and time again as film and television portray the world as a scary place that without whom a few faceless people in the right place and with vigilance their watchword, untold damage could be done to the nation. The spooks, the secret service of today is a far cry from that which looked after the nation’s interests at the heart of the Cold War and yet somehow it still feels as though in the end it is just a game.
The Game is all that matters in the end, the boundless addictive thrill that comes with solving the pattern of events that could lead to the country being dominated by another and in the 1970s that threat of being destabilised by the might of the Russian military machine was one that very real and terrifying.
The Game is the latest television series which tries to convey that sense of undercover panic that gripped the country at the time. The prospect of nuclear war one that dominated the day to day thoughts and led to such programmes as Threads being made and arguably one of the scariest public information films being shown in Protect and Survive. Against this back drop of terror, The Game played out with the usual suspense and dire warnings of reds, not just under the beds, but in high office and able to start influencing policy in Government.
It is this allusion to such horror films as The Children of the Damned or the Body Snatchers that sits under the surface, the fact that even now as Russian fighter planes routinely probe the U.K.’s air defences, the feeling of vulnerability creeps in.
With Tom Hughes impressing as the stoic M.I.5 officer Joe Lambe and with a cast that includes the excellent Victoria Hamilton as Sarah Montag, the ever reliable Brain Cox as the head of M.I.5, the gracious Rachel Stirling being dropped in for a couple of episodes and the new face of Chloe Pirrie as the new woman on the team, Wendy Straw, the organisation is led down many paths, may avenues in which the Russians are happy to lead them before the final bitter truth is revealed.
As spy dramas go, The Game is worth watching more for its nostalgic terror than for any real pulsating action bit it is that sense of realism that grabs the viewer from the off and which makes the series a subtle reminder that such moments in time are decided by the spin of a coin, one wrong turn and the world would be a very different place.
Bleak, stark and almost claustrophobic, The Game is a grim reminder of what could be a great piece of British drama.
Ian D. Hall