Following its premiere earlier this year on ITVX the cold war drama A Spy Among Friends arrives on ITV1 and STV tonight.
The production is based on the New York Times best-selling book written by Ben Macintyre. Starring Damian Lewis and Guy Pearce the six-episode series dramatises the true story of Nicholas Elliott and Kim Philby, two British spies and lifelong friends.
Philby was the most notorious British defector and Soviet double agent in history. This is a story of intimate duplicity; of loyalty, trust and treachery. Philby’s deeply personal betrayal, uncovered at the height of the Cold War, resulted in the gutting of British and American Intelligence.
This espionage thriller dramatises the illustrious, and true story, set at the height of the Cold War, of Nicholas Elliott (Lewis) and Kim Philby (Pearce) — two spies and lifelong friends, one of whom was betraying the other all along.
In the first episode, entitled Boom-ooh-yatatatah, In the wake of Kim Philby’s escape to Moscow, his closest friend in Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service (also known as MI6.), Nicholas Elliott, is under investigation by Mrs. Lily Thomas from the Security Service (MI5): Did he facilitate Philby’s escape because he’s also a traitor working for the Russians, or is it just that his judgement was clouded at a critical moment by their twenty-three year friendship?
Or maybe, just maybe, he in fact had the last laugh having manipulated Philby to run to the bosom of the KGB for foreign intelligence purposes.
Alongside Pearce and Lewis, cast members include Anna Maxwell Martin, Adrian Edmondson and Stephen Kunken.
A Spy Among Friends, 9pm on ITV1 and STV
