Radio 4's Looking Glass War

[sawyl]

A truly excellent dramatisation of John Le Carré's The Looking Glass War in the classic serial slot. Particularly good was the scene in which LeClerc (Ian McDiarmid) and Smiley (Simon Russell Beale) feint and jab at each other over lunch. LeClerc knows that he needs the assistance of the Circus but doesn't want to give anything away, so he sell Smiley a line about a training mission. Smiley, meanwhile, has a pretty fair idea of what LeClerc wants and why but doesn't want to show that he knows, while at the same time he wants to appear helpful without really being helpful.

Superb stuff.