Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Remake

John le Carré’s Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy is not just a book I love. In 1979, at arguably their peak in terms of television drama, the BBC turned Tinker into what is indisputably my favourite television programme of all time. I still watch in its entirety on a pretty much annual basis and never tire of its themes of betrayal and decline; seemingly improving with age as it becomes a period piece that embodies Britain's changed understanding of itself and its position in the world following years of post-war decline. So it comes as no surprise that I’m just a bit excited by the imminent release of the big screen version. The problem is that I just know in my cynical old bones that I’m going to be a bit disappointed. It’s really just a matter of how disappointed I’m going to be. Yes, of course I know I should give it a chance. I can assure that I will. I shall drag my wife (who has never read or seen it) to the cinema overflowing with irritating and somewhat out of character positive vibes. I shall be a veritable cheerleader for George Smiley and the chaps of The Circus. I am overwhelmed by a desire to give this movie a chance. It’s either this sense of fair-mindedness or my masochistic streak that has had me searching the net for months, searching for the inevitable ‘teaser’.

After all, the net buzz for Tinker has been good. The Internet press have been falling over themselves to say how great this film is going to be because...well, just why are they so enthused?  As far as I can tell, the reasons why they believe it will be great are that it is British, based on a book they haven’t read that was turned into a TV series they haven’t seen (with Obi-Wan Kenobi in it), and it stars Gary Oldman and Colin Firth. Everyone loves Gary and Colin, don’t they? Perhaps they do. Furthermore, that ‘British’ tag is important. No-one wanted to see Tom Cruise or, heaven forbid, Johnny Depp with his British accent (he only has one) or this quintessentially British spy story transposed to America with the obligatory car chases, guns and girls. Well not many of us, I would have thought (and hoped).

And now the teaser is upon us.

 Now teasers are a funny thing. They are based on the law that if you squeeze a film of any length into  sixty seconds (thereby showing the best 0.5% , or something like that), then any film will look good. So the best we can tell from a teaser is that, if it still looks like the film will be poor, then we can expect a turkey the size of Godzilla when it is finally released. But Tinker’s teaser has given cause to those who knew it would be great to positively gush over its general demeanour of both moodiness and seriousness. Everyone loves moodiness and seriousness, right? This will be the Greatest Movie of All Time and will attract an avalanche of Oscars. Moody and serious movies win Oscars and we all know what a guarantee of quality an Oscar is. (We do? – Ed)

Unfortunately, it pains me to say that Tinker’s biggest fan (me) actually rather hates the teaser. Sorry, but I do. It’s quite hard to say why but there is something thoroughly untinkerish about it. For a start, there is a definite hint of sexiness. Ricky Tarr is seen interacting with (what I assume to be) Irina in what can only be described as a moment of steaminess. Tinker is not a sexy story. It’s not often that I don’t welcome a bit of steaminess but here it just isn’t right. Then there’s that room the big five are meeting in; its plush carpeted walls giving a sense of womb-like security that will, no doubt, give the presence of Gerald (the mole) a sense of violating threat. But remember the scruffy looking meeting room with painted radiators and seventies civil service charm from the TV series? Apart from the sense of authenticity it gave Tinker, the trappings of decay perfectly captured the idea of British decline as another layer of betrayal. As Connie Sachs so eloquently put it: “Poor loves. Trained to Empire, trained to rule the waves.” Britain no longer provided them with the cause they were created for. This was all part of the explanation for Gerald’s betrayal itself and this further loss of innocence was beautifully captured by the use of a choir boy singing “Nunc Dimittis” over the closing credits. I don’t mind admitting that the emotional effect of this music makes me feel a little overcome after my annual Tinker viewing. Now, I realise that the music in this teaser is not the music that will be used; in fact it is the music from The Wolfman (2010). However, if it’s indicative of what we’ll get in the final release, then they’re clearly going for “tense” rather than “reflective” and I’d rather my Tinker was the latter. 

Oh well, I must stop thinking anyone thinks of me when they make a movie. Tinker is a good yarn and it’s never been made for a worldwide cinema audience so it was only a matter of time until we got a mainstream film. Mind you, it was a good yarn’s lack of exposure that I suspect gave somebody the wheeze of remaking The Wickerman (1973) and look what a success that was. I shall do my best to enjoy this film and, for all I’ve said, I’m still looking forward to it. I just get the feeling that it won’t be my Tinker anymore.

The Strange World of Kirsty Young

The other night I watched Kirsty Young’s ‘The British at Work’ (10^th March, BBC2) with the usual mixture of anticipation and dread that any new documentary series on the BBC can generate. For all the entertaining enlightenment I might get out of a BBC doc’, there is always the danger of Alice Roberts spending at least  half a program making sure I know what it’s about (just in case I’m a bit thick or too distracted by the ‘Hello’ article I’m trying to read at the same time).  The first part of Kirsty’s series was okay, I suppose, but I couldn’t help feeling irritated beyond belief by Kirsty’s somewhat sheltered view of the typical British working experience.  This first part was entitled ‘We Can Make It’ and dealt with the travails of the working Brit in the post-war period 1945-1964. As interesting as this might have been, she set the scene by poking one of my bugbears in the eye with a big stick.

‘Nowadays, most of us’, we were informed, ‘do a job we like’.

Oh, do we?

‘In fact, most of us would say our job defines us’.

At this point, I have become so cross that I had to rewind five minutes later as I realised I’d stopped listening and was simply venting cartoon steam from ears. Kirsty’s point was that in the twenty-first century we are all lucky enough to choose what we do, while our parents and grandparents simply did whatever they could to keep a roof over their heads. Kirsty felt the need to point out that even her grandparents (we got rather a lot of Kirsty’s grandparents over the course of the program) had awful jobs. Her grandfather worked in a shipyard (presumably while wearing a flat cap and clutching a pint of ‘Heavy’) while her grandmother put the walnuts on our whips (the cheeky little minx).

Of course, nowadays we all have fulfilling jobs in the media.

Except we don’t. Speaking as someone with twenty-two and a half soul destroying years in the civil service behind them, I can absolutely guarantee that many of us do not like our jobs and would be horrified that anyone thought these jobs defined us.  But enough about me. Does Kirsty not even manage to get down her local Waitrose? (I’m taking a shot that Kirsty may not be an Asda girl). I’m pretty certain that even in the mighty ‘Trose, the average shelf-stacker does not consider that their stacking duties ‘define’ them in any way. Kirsty fails to realise that many people are trapped in jobs by their financial commitments. This wasn’t just an immediate post-war phenomena; it’s as true now as it ever was, perhaps more so. Many of us have never found out what we’re good at. As clichéd as it might sound, some people may just never have got the ‘breaks’. Who, exactly, does Kirsty think clean the toilets?

If it sounds like I’m a bit too worked up about this, just remember that Kirsty might just be representative of the media types who make these programs. I hope not, but you can see all too easily that this might be the case. An awful image forms of Kirsty and her media chums sitting in a trendy London bar talking about their next project for a public they know nothing about; a public that seems to be invisible to them in a world where bins empty themselves and the wheels just turn by the collective wishful thinking of their social set.

Or am I being a bit dumb here? Was Kirsty talking to me, personally? Well, not just me. That would be odd to say the least; but me as a representative of that oh-so-important group of people: The documentary viewers. Perhaps Kirsty assumes we’re not like everyone else. The shelf stackers are all watching the X Factor and the civil servants are all retreating to some alcoholic refuge to hide from their own souls. I find this view even more disturbing. Kirsty has decided that her program is not for everyone; just nice people with the wherewithal to achieve their career goals and get nice job in the media. You can watch if you’re not one of us but don’t expect to enjoy it; we didn’t really make if for you.

Oh well, on that dark note, I look forward to the rest of the series if only to discover at what point Kirsty thinks we all got nice jobs and found self-fulfilment. I wonder what that episode will be called.