Within the BBC adaptation of John le Carré’s Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (1979), Joss Ackland shares a significant scene in a central London bar with Alec Guinness as George Smiley. As Jerry Westerby, a sports activities journalist additionally employed by “the Circus”, he tells of how on a visit to Prague he had heard from a younger Czechoslovak soldier of Russian involvement in foiling a Circus ploy, one other piece of the jigsaw that Smiley must lure the “mole” in Britain’s safety service. Each actors are on the high of their sport.
Whereas Guinness is as inscrutable, clever and economical in model as ever, Ackland fills the display screen along with his gusto and enthusiasm – as Michael Coveney says, “at all times with power and power” – and the 2 males complement one another completely in crafting a pivotal second.
