Ashenden (1991)

Directed by

Christopher Morahan

Genre

drama television series, miniseries, espionage television series

Country

United Kingdom

Length

1 season, 4 episodes

Rating

6.0 of 10 from 1 voters

Elsewhere

IMDb

How it feels

A British intelligence agent works as a spy during World War I. The story is told in four episodes based on W. Somerset Maugham's novel.

measuredwryunderstatedold-fashionedreservedmelancholicquietly tense

What happens

Ashenden is a British four-part TV series based on the 1927 spy novel, Ashenden: Or the British Agent, by W. Somerset Maugham, that aired on BBC1 from 17 November to 8 December 1991, directed by Christopher Morahan, with Alex Jennings in the title role, Joss Ackland as Cumming, Ian Bannen as 'R' and Jason Isaacs as Andrew Lehman. Guest actors included Harriet Walter as Giulia Lazzari in the first episode, Alan Bennett as Grantly Caypor in the second, René Auberjonois as John Quincy Harrington in the third, with Elizabeth McGovern as Aileen Sommerville and Alfred Molina as Carmona, the titular character, in the final story. A framing device at the start of each episode shows progressively more of an aged Ashenden living in France in the mid-1960s, reacting adversely to a piece of music on the radio. The final episode – which gives the context to this section – closes with a return to this "future" setting. The series was filmed in 13 weeks on location in Yugoslavia and was completed in June 1991, immediately prior to the outbreak of the Ten-Day War. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

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