Radio Reviews

Having just run Rogue Male, BBC7 ran an abridged version of Rogue Justice this week. I (along with generations of others) thoroughly enjoyed the story of the ‘Rogue Male’ and was looking forward to the adaptation of the sequel.

Unfortunately it offered very little in comparison to it’s forebear. Perhaps the best example I can give of this, is when it finished today, I was expecting another 10 episodes. So flat was the ending it merely felt like the end of a chapter.

I think the easiest way to explain why Rogue Justice fails is simply to compare it to Rogue Male.

Rogue male was an intimate battle between our un-named hero and Major Quive-Smith (a German agent, never stated but implied). The hunter and hunted and a certain symmetry of character make this battle engrossing. There is tremendous suspense in the original story, and the narrative and the locations are simple and clear. The drive is the hero’s obsessions and character. The impression given in the book is that the death of his lover was more a catalyst that lead him to become a lone hunter, the personality, the character traits were already there, this is no lame Deus Ex Machina, more a revelation to the character. His symbiotic relationship with nature is a pleasure to read, and a real generator of suspense.

There are no protagonists in Rogue Justice worthy of a mention, just a few nasty Nazi’s (yes it is explicitly Germany this time) . He never pits his wits against the elements let alone someone comparable to Quive-Smith. His lover becomes the overwhelming driver for his revenge on a state, her torture almost out of Sax Rohmer.

The feel is more of an extended travelogue with an occasional fight with ‘the Germans’, a Jewish character is introduced and you feel he may become an outlet for discussions with our hero, but he is just sidelined halfway through.

I guess the main criticism is that it feels like a different character in a different kind of novel, but most importantly, and more simply, there is no suspense and no resolution.

Listenable, absolutely, it passes the time, but once you have heard the original, decidedly ersatz.

BBC7 – Rogue Justice
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00hb6n4

Radioarchive torrent
http://radioarchive.cc/torrents-details.php?id=4879

Radioarchive Rogue Male torrent
http://radioarchive.cc/torrents-details.php?id=1008

Stars Alfred Molina, Michael York and Terri Garr, directed by Martin Jarvis – interested?  Well you should be. The real stars?  Rosalind Ayres and Hugh Whitmore for a superb performance in a great play.

Lying and deceit are at the heart of this drama.  I can’t really call it a cold war thriller because it isn’t, but it’s not a kitchen sink drama either.  That is what makes it so interesting.  The idea that alongside middle class surburbia, there can be the world of Harry Palmer and George Smiley. Reds under the bed? Not really, more like secrets behind neighbour’s doors.

I pulled out Rosalind Ayres (the current Mrs Jarvis I believe) performance as the nervous Barbara simply because it would have been very easy to make the part into some kind of OTT nervous breakdown.  What we actually see is a woman wracked (and wrecked) by her desire to tell the truth and believe the best in people.

Micheal York as – for a better word – ‘The man from the ministry’ is excellent.  he plays it somewhat like Guy Doleman in The Ipcress File (Don’t slouch into my office like a pregnant camel… what a great line)  but with a little more humanity. It may be his job but you feel even he doesn’t really enjoy all the lies.

There is fact behind the fiction, this is based on a true story, but I am not sure what that adds to what you hear. It is obviously a play, the lack of locations (there is one) and heavy dialogue show its antecedents, but that hardly matters.  Not the when the dialogue and the performances (all of the performances without exception) are just so very good.

Everyone in this is very real, almost understated and you do care, by the end of it you can almost taste the tension and weariness in the house.  The period detail is there but not overly precise or in your face.  You know its broadly the sixties and the cold war is at it’s height and that is enough.

When we hear the monologues from Peter and helen about the life that lead them to spy one feels sympathy but not necessarily understanding, which I think is probably right. This is not a political play; the politics is a player but not the focus.

The original West End / Broadway productions were great successes, if they were much better than this radio play then the Lyric Theatre must have been outstanding in 1983 because that’s how I feel about this play – outstanding.

CLC

radioarchive link
http://radioarchive.cc/torrents-details.php?id=4682