They don`t make them like this any more – they make them differently. Whatever, the 1982 BBC television version of John le Carré’s great spy novel Smiley’s People is a masterclass – in adaptation, script-writing, filming and acting – and in its re-origination for DVD it comes up fresh as paint, no detail or shading lost.
The first thing you notice is the extraordinary stillness and quietness of it. It takes you aback, takes ten minutes to get used to, and then enfolds you in total concentration. Contemporary television drama is noisy, loud and ubiquitous and, above all, especially in the thriller department, it caters for those with the attention span of a gnat. We are never allowed to linger. But Smiley’s People moves at a measured, occasionally even a ponderous pace, which means the words come through, the actors are given time for every expression and gesture to register and the viewer time to grasp what is going on.
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