Bernard Samson Returns to Television!

Well, here's the story to beat as the best spy news of the year! The Deighton Dossier reports that Len Deighton's greatest character (yes, even greater than the unnamed hero of The Ipcress File and its sequels) is returning to television... for an 18-episode maxi-series courtesy of Slumdog Millionaire writer Simon Beaufoy! The Hollywood Reporter reports that Clerkenwell Films, the production company behind Misfits, is developing an 18-episode maxi-series based on Deighton's classic Cold War series featuring Bernard and Fiona Samson. The 10-volume series encompasses three separate trilogies (Berlin Game, Mexico Set, and London Match; Spy Hook, Spy Line and Spy Sinker; Faith, Hope, and Charity) and a standalone prequel, Winter, which comes between the first two trilogies. These books, which brilliantly bridge the desk and field sides of the genre, are among my favorite spy novels ever. One day I shall get around to examining them in detail on this site, but suffice it to say that they are absolutely essential reading for any and all fans of espionage fiction or students of the Cold War. Again and again I see The Ipcress File listed as Deighton's best book (and there's no denying that it's a great read and made a wonderful movie), but to me the Samson cycle is the author's unequaled masterwork, and I cannot wait to see it adapted in its entirety. (The first three novels were filmed as Game Set Match for ITV in 1988, starring Ian Holm as Bernard, a series Deighton was reportedly unhappy with.) Oscar-winning screenwriter Beaufoy encapsulates everything that's wonderful about these novels very succinctly in the press release:

Deighton's masterful series of novels draws the hidden political map of the late twentieth century. It is all here: murders, honey-traps and spy swaps, the double-dealing and manoeuvring of nations jousting for position at the height of the Cold War, with Bernard Samson, the Bond with brains, giving it an almost Chandleresque sense of cool. The novels have at their heart a love story of Shakespearian proportions, taking in passion, betrayal, loyalty and the lengths we will go for the love of country and the love of one another.

Deighton himself is fully behind the new adaptation. A few years ago, Quentin Tarantino expressed an interest in filming the first three novels, but the author has always held out for an offer from a film company who wanted to adapt the entire series. Now that's come. My only regret is that it's just 18 episodes. Assuming these are hour-long episodes, and assuming Winter isn't part of the deal, that only allows two hours per book. The 1988 series was able to devote four to each of the first three volumes. But I trust Beaufoy to figure that out! And who knows? If the series is a success, perhaps we'll see Winter become a miniseries in its own right down the road. With a story spanning five tumultuous decades, it certainly could.

This is now officially the spy project I am most excited about on the foreseeable horizon. I hope it comes to fruition!