The spy thriller miniseries A spy among friends, starring Damian Lewis and Guy Pearce, has landed on Amazon’s Prime Video, based on the book by Ben Macintyre.
It tells the story of notorious MI6 agent and KGB double agent Kim Philby (Pearce), but through his friendship with fellow British intelligence officer Nicholas Elliott (Lewis). The miniseries begins with the discovery that Philby is a Soviet spy, and Elliott is given the task of obtaining Philby’s confession and getting him back from Beirut.
As we skip around the timeline and look back on that friendship, we get a glimpse of that relationship from the perspective of Anna Maxwell Martin’s character, Lily Thomas. She is an MI5 agent who overheard Elliott’s conversation with Philby in Lebanon and is interrogating him about the interaction.
The ‘A Spy Among Friends’ Screenwriter Defends the Female Cast
For miniseries writer Alexander Cary, he had to defend the introduction of Martin’s character into the series.
I get a small amount of shit in some what I would call more conservative outlets that say it’s politically correct and “woke” to put a woman in there. The truth is I think there are a lot of unsung heroes, female heroes of this time in this world and the reason we think it’s politically correct is because they were fucking unsung. Why don’t you sing them now?Alexander Cary, author of the miniseries A Spy Among Friends.
“If you call that politically correct and ‘woke up,’ then move on.”
In fact, as author Macintyre points out, Lily is not entirely fictional, the character being based on several women in MI5.
“It’s not a complete invention, there were women in MI5,” Macintyre said. “I immediately pictured them as a mix of two of them.”
“There was a woman named Jane Archer, the most senior female MI5 officer, who Philby was actually afraid of. He considered her extremely dangerous for his position. The other is a woman walking past [name of Milicent Bagot]who was a different breed of anti-Soviet investigator after the war.
Macintyre added that he felt it was a “stroke of genius” to bring the character of Lily into the series, which in some ways reflects the author’s way of trying to analyze this story for his book.
“It’s almost someone looking at this from a different perspective, from a modern perspective, trying to pull apart the weird and complex and intertwined issues of class, race, clubs, politics,” he said. “There’s an intriguing, intricate tangle of things that exist in this story, and she’s there, just like me, trying to pull it apart.”
“I’m trying to figure out which strands are working where and who’s lying to whom and who’s telling the truth and who’s betraying where and what they’re betraying… In a lot of ways, I think the character of Lily Thomas is she’s our investigator, she is.” our interlocutor, she is the person who is as baffled and inquisitive, inquisitive and unwilling, as we are as readers, writers, viewers and filmmakers. “
Cary added this point of view to the story, explaining that it was part of not wanting to “regulate” the book, so a fresh perspective on the story was needed.
“I wanted to introduce a character through whose eyes we viewers could see the story, experience it, and experience this friendship between these two men,” he said. “I thought it would be interesting and funny to have a person representing the Britain that is being ignored by these establishment men.”
“That’s why I came up with her, the fact that she’s also from Durham, the fact that she’s working class was on purpose. I wanted someone who didn’t agree with what people like Philby and Elliott probably took for granted, which was their privilege, or at least was more aware of their privilege than they were in many ways.”
“Intimate Betrayal”
While Philby’s story was certainly told, it’s really this additional angle on the series that makes the delivery feel refreshed. But at the heart of the story is still a deep betrayal.
“It’s a really intimate betrayal because this was such a close friendship… you can imagine,” Macintyre said. “It had a special resonance because it was forged in wartime and not only were the two very similar in age and class, in education and interests, … they also had a special bond in that they felt they had fought shoulder – shoulder.” on shoulder in war.”
“But one of them was cheated throughout the process, he was lied to from the very first moment. Indeed, one of the very startling things, one of Philby’s first reports to the KGB about Nicholas Elliott was brutally unkind. It was really bad reporting. So Philby knew exactly what he was doing from the start.”
