War & Politics / Drama / Mystery
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy is a seven-part BBC2 spy drama written by Arthur Hopcraft, adapted from John le Carré's eponymous 1974 novel. The serial, which stars Alec Guinness, Alexander Knox, Ian Richardson, Michael Jayston, Bernard Hepton, Anthony Bate, Ian Bannen, George Sewell…


Retired espionage veteran George Smiley is called out on a top-secret mission: to uncover a Soviet agent within MI6's echelons.

British agent Ricki Tarr, believed to have defected, resurfaces with sensational information: confirmation of a Russian mole in the Service.

The investigation begins, with Peter Guillam burgling the archives for information, while Smiley visits an old comrade whose past knowledge could prove vital to locating the spy.

While Guillam and Tarr come under pressure, Smiley recounts his one meeting with Soviet master spy Karla, who is undoubtedly running the mole inside MI6.

Smiley calls on ex-Circus spy San Collins, who was the duty officer the night Jim Prideaux was shot. Collins confirms the events as Smiley understands them and that Prideaux's good friend Bill Hayden is the senior officer who took charge of the case after all hell broke loose. Smiley subsequently meets with Prideaux to get a firsthand account of the events during the disastrous Operation Testify in Czechoslovakia.

Smiley confronts one of his suspects and gives him the results of his investigations, which could prove a considerable embarrassment to those concerned.

Smiley springs his trap and catches the mole, who confesses how and why it happened, and the answers ultimately rob Smiley of any sense of victory.

George Smiley

Peter Guillam

Sir Oliver Lacon

Mendel

Hu Bayi, Shirley Yang and Fatty Wang discover that the rumoured life-saving "dust bead" had become a burial object in the tomb of the King Xian of the ancient Dian Kingdom and set to find the traces of the mystic object. Following a human skin map, the three pass through the secret underground waterway of the ancient Dian Kingdom under the Zhalong Mountain.

The plot centers on a large-scale conspiracy by a group of US military personnel, led by General James Scott, against the current President Jordan Lyman. Further events show that the President, who sent his closest aides and friends to investigate, easily and almost indifferently accepts the news of their deaths, because he is only interested in his own person.

Madrid, Spain, February 23, 1981. A group of Civil Guards storm into the Congress of Deputies and terrorize those present by firing shots into the air. Only three men remain unmoved: Prime Minister Adolfo Suárez; Vice President Manuel Gutiérrez Mellado; and Santiago Carrillo, leader of the Communist Party.

Between 1938 and 1948, from the height of Italy s Fascist regime to the end of the tumultuous post-war period, Chief Detective De Luca investigates and solves crimes in the City of Bologna and along the Adriatic coast. With little or no regard for those in power, whoever they happen to be, his solitary, uncompromising character often lands him in trouble, but his respect is reserved for the truth and justice alone. In the four TV movies of the series Unauthorized Investigation , Carte Blanche , The Damned Season and Via Della Oche each taken from a novel by best-selling mystery Carlo Lucarelli Chief Detective De Luca always ultimately gets to the bottom of his cases, though what he finds leaves a bitter aftertaste.

Somerset 1894. When a pioneering Victorian psychologist brings his vivacious young wife to live on his family's estate, he is confronted by one disturbing case after another. Are these strange events linked merely by coincidence, or is there something more sinister - more supernatural - going on at Shepzoy?

David McCallum stars as the rebellious Alan Breck Stewart, and this ambitious serial (a co-production between HTV and Germany's Tele-Munchen) also features a host of British character actors, including Bill Simpson, Patrick Allen, Andrew Keir, Patrick Magee and Frank Windsor. When young David Balfour arrives at his uncle's bleak Scottish house to claim his inheritance, his relative tries to murder him then has him shipped off to be sold as a slave in the colonies. Luckily for the lad, he strikes up a friendship with Alan Breck Stewart, who is on the run after Bonnie Prince Charlie's defeat at Culloden. When a ship's captain tries to kill Breck for his money, the two manage to get to land and set out for Edinburgh, dodging the ruthless Redcoats along the way.