UK, 2022 — 6 episodes, streaming on TVNZ+. Alex Cary (writer), Nick Murphy (director). Reviewed by Paul Tankard

For writers of on-screen dramas, the Cold War is the gift that keeps on giving. Throughout the 1950s, ’60s and ’70s, British government officials Burgess and Maclean, Philby and Blunt — known as the “Cambridge four” and for many people still household names — were successively found to be Soviet spies. This account is based on the 2014 book by Ben Macintyre.

After Burgess and Maclean absconded in 1951, and before Sir Anthony Blunt was exposed in 1979, the “third man” and the Spy Among Friends is Kim Philby (Guy Pearce), who when the series opens in 1963 is an agent for MI6 in Beirut, but around whom were long-held suspicions coming to a head. Fellow agent Nicholas Elliot (Damian Lewis), a longtime friend of Philby, is sent from London to extract a confession from him. Before a statement could be signed, Philby is on a cargo ship heading to Moscow.

When Elliot returns to London, he is comprehensively de-briefed for MI5 by Lily Thomas (Anna Maxwell Martin), a ficticious character, apparently, and a sort of surrogate for the viewers, assisting us to figure out what’s happening when, and who is or isn’t spying on or betraying whom. MI5 investigates MI6, and the CIA is watching both.

The series itself is like an investigation, shifting back and forth over two decades, and not only between London, Beirut and Moscow, but also Istanbul and Ohio. There’s a lot of talk, but also plenty of excitement: chases, bombings, raids and a massacre. The question we’re considering throughout is what did Philby do, or think he was doing.

Some of these limited series seem as if the makers of them first write a consecutive narrative, then cut it up so as to get to the end in the most round-about way possible. It keeps viewers watching, but it’s very easy to get confused. Every time we watched an episode we re-watched the previous one, so ended up seeing it all twice. This is not a complaint.

The colour palette reminds us of post-war rationing and the world before colour TV. The interiors and particularly the complexions of all the actors make it look as if they drink too much and don’t get enough sunlight and vitamins.

The three lead actors are terrific. Martin is understated, cool and compelling. Lewis is controlled, wry, deeply attached to Philby but baffled and angered by him; and as Philby, Guy Pearce is charming, a bit ruthless, but also naïve and vulnerable. It’s difficult to see him as an enemy to the British way of life, as he loves so much of it: music-hall, cricket, pubs and clubs. Philby is never going to be at home in Moscow, and he knows it.

A Spy Among Friends is a patient and elegant study of loyalty and of a time in which, for better or worse, patriotism was not entirely foolish and friendship counted for something. And betrayal is, at least, not recommended.

Tui Motu Magazine. Issue 283 July 2023: 28