FIFTY years ago this week filming began on one of the greatest, strangest and wilfully odd mainstream TV series ever to grace the small screen.
The Prisoner only ran for 17 episodes but by the time the last of those had aired in 1968 a cult had been spawned that continues to flourish to this day.
Concept-wise, it’s very simple. Well, it’s as mad as get out in actual fact but relatively simple all the same.
Thunder cracks and Ron Grainer’s stonking sig tune kicks in on the soundtrack. A stern-faced, black-suited Patrick McGoohan drives his groovy little Lotus 7 kit car around London before storming into a faceless government office and forcefully slammed his letter of resignation down on the table of his faceless government paymaster.
He then returns to his well-appointed London apartment to pack for a presumably well-earned holiday. Before he can get his case shut, though, he is gassed and passes out only to wake up in an exact replica of his flat.
When he staggers to the window and draws back the blinds he discovers he’s now looking out on a beautiful, picture-postcard village where the locals are all known only by a number (McGoohan is Number 6, it seems) and everyone dresses in candy-stripe jumpers, scoots about on penny farthing bicycles and mutters “Be Seeing you” to each other.
When our man tries to make his escape, this apparent holiday resort turns out to be an elaborate prison peopled by authority figures in boating blazers who torture him constantly about why he reigned while huge white balloons patrol the village boundaries chasing down and seemingly sucking the faces off anyone mad enough to try to make a break for freedom.
What followed was 17 hour-long episodes where Number 6 pitted his wits against his captors, shouted “I am not a number, I am a free man” a lot and demanded to know “Who is number one?” week in and week out.
So what was it all about? An allegorical study of man’s freedom in an ever more controlling society, a send up of the traditional 60s spy series with an added aura of period psychedelic madness or just a thumping good adventure yarn? Well it was probably all those things and more.
It was a labour of love for McGoohan, the hugely charismatic main man who far from just starring in the show would write, occasionally direct and generally steer it into the margins of madness where most of its magic was to be found.
The Irish-American leading man, who’d risen to international fame as secret agent John Drake in the ITC series Dangerman, imbued the role with a brooding intensity. This was his vehicle and he drove it well and truly off the rails in the best possible way.
A product of its time that also feels relevant in its themes today, The Prisoner is a cult TV series that raised more questions than answers and disappeared before it outstayed its welcome. It was also unfeasibly cool. Be seeing you!
