#toby esterhase

Group portrait with mole

I’ve seen this so many times, I practically know it by heart. The excellent performances and naturalistic direction give the world a lived-in feeling. The people that Smiley encounters throughout have lives before he walks through them, and will go on after he’s gone.

One of the things that I noticed most this time round was the detail in the production. The way that life seems to be going on around Smiley sometimes makes it feel like a documentary. As an example, the book contains these lines, as Smiley waits for the cab driver Lamb to arrive: “An elderly couple had settled opposite him. The man wore a stiff Homburg hat and was playing war tunes on a tin whistle. He wife grinned inanely at the passers-by.” Two sentences, just adding color to Smiley’s perception of his surroundings, that could easily be ignored by a director, but about thirteen and a half minutes into episode 2, we get this: https://imgur.com/R6njW5j

Another thing I noticed — not for the first time — on this rewatch was the music. I love the music for this, and I’d love to get hold of the soundtrack. As far as I can tell, it was only issued on vinyl, and only in the UK.

Speaking of music, the song playing in Claus Kretzschmar’s nightclub is possibly the most (deliberately) awful sexy rock ever committed on television. The whole nightclub scene is ridiculous (one of the performers can be seen chewing gum during her show). Later, when Kretzschmar asks Smiley what he thought of the show, one can imagine Smiley summoning up a lifetimes practice in deception to tell him, “It was very artistic.”

The nightclub scene is odd when one considers that, unlike Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, this appeared on regular commercial television in the US, rather than on PBS, where nudity was winked at in the service of highbrow entertainment. The US version is shorter than the UK version, but the nightclub scene is virtually intact.

A few other thoughts: the only cast member with which I have any issue whatsoever is Eileen Atkins. She’s fine as Ostrakova, but was a fill-in for Judi Dench, who apparently had another commitment. For myself, though, I think they should have had someone like Patsy Byrne.

Michael Byrne plays Peter Guillam this time around. He’s a much more domesticated version of the character, with a settled job and a new wife.

Toby Esterhase comes into his own as a character, particularly in episodes 5 & 6. We get to see why the service has kept such an apparently weasley character on for so long: he’s very, very good at his job.

George, do me a favour, okay? You want a Hungarian babysitter someday, call me. You go messing around with creeps like Kirov and Leipzig, you better have a creep like Toby look after you. You're an old spy in a hurry, George. You used to say they were the worst.

Bernard Hepton [19th Oct 1925 - 30th July 2018] as tiny Toby Esterhase in Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy [BBC, 1979] and Smiley’s People [BBC, 1982].