Category: Review

Brilliantly Constructed by David Pollock | The Courier | December 10, 2022 Christmas has come early for fans of high-quality British spy thrillers, with two excellent and very different espionage series now up on streaming television. The new kid on the block is the one with the classic feel, a six-part adaptation of Ben Macintyre’s…

Posh Omerta by Hugo Rifkind | The Times | December 9, 2022 Posh omerta. Let’s talk about that. It’s at the heart, pretty much, of A Spy Among Friends, a tremendous new espionage thriller on ITVX. And no, I’m not wholly clear what ITVX is either, but let’s move on. An adaptation — like so…

Small Screen Spectacle by Susan Knox | Irish Mirror | December 8, 2022 ITV kindly launched an adaptation of another Ben MacIntyre book, A Spy Among Friends, the opening episode of which made me want to do exactly what the opening episode of Rogue Heroes made me want to do: Dive in and watch the…

Emotional Intelligence by Matthew d’Ancona | Tortois Media  | December 8, 2022 The key text is supplied by aesthete Anthony Blanche in Waugh’s Brideshead Revisited. “I took you out to dinner to warn you of charm,” he says to his old Oxford friend, Charles Ryder. “Charm is the great English blight. It does not exist…

“Lewis and Pearce Especially Share Phenomenal Chemistry” by Chris Connor | Yahoo! Entertainment  | December 8, 2022 A Spy Among Friends, the most high profile launch title for new UK streaming platform ITVX, retells the well-trodden story of the Cambridge Five. The spy ring — comprised of Donald Maclean, Guy Burgess, Kim Philby, Anthony Blunt,…

The Enigma and His Charismatic Traitor by Rebecca Nicholson | The Guardian  | December 8, 2022 ★★★☆☆ The story of the notorious MI6 agent and Soviet spy Kim Philby has been told numerous times before, but A Spy Among Friends (ITVX) has a fresh bash at it, using Ben Macintyre’s book of the same name…

A Spy Among Friends ITV Review: Four Stars by Dan Einav | Financial Times  | December 5, 2022 ★★★★☆ In the second world war, Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) had among their ranks one of the most successful spies in history. Trouble was, Harold “Kim” Philby was so adept at espionage that not only did…

“Damian Lewis and Guy Pearce Act Their Socks Off” by Joel Golby | The Guardian  | December 3, 2022 Double agents are everywhere. Damian Lewis and Guy Pearce act their socks off. But nobody knows what ITVX is – no matter what the secret service say. The thing with A Spy Among Friends is that…