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Terrific Cast
by Nick Curtis | Evening Standard | November 25, 2022
Damian Lewis and Guy Pearce do an awful lot of stiff-upper-lip acting in ITV’s new espionage drama A Spy Among Friends, the latest to explore the actions of the Cambridge Five, Soviet spies who were at the heart of the British Establishment from the Second World War onwards. Here the focus is on Kim Philby (Pearce) whose treachery was discovered in 1963.
Philby’s great friend and fellow SIS agent Nicholas Elliott was dispatched to Beirut to confront and possibly to detain or “turn” Philby again. Instead, he extracted a partial confession and let Philby abscond to Russia. On screen this tale has bags of atmosphere, period detail and clipped dialogue.
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Spies Like Us
by Richard Godwin and Caroline Frost | Radio Times | November 22, 2022
Damian Lewis and Guy Pearce are among the most acclaimed actors of their generation. Lewis has transformed himself into a tortured US soldier in Homeland, a volatile Henry VIII in Wolf Hall, an obnoxious hedge-fund manager in Billions – and any number of Shakespearean roles. Pearce sprang from the Australian soap Neighbours into a wide-ranging career, with roles including a drag queen, action heroes and a lovelorn English King.
But neither man has anything on Kim Philby, the British intelligence officer unmasked as a Soviet double-agent as part of the Cambridge Spy Ring, which included Guy Burgess, Donald Maclean and Anthony Blunt, and whose web of deception has been a subject of endless fascination since his exposure in 1962. Lewis sees Philby’s treachery as “part of British folklore.”
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Forsyte Saga, Wolf Hall, Poirot, A Touch of Frost, A Spy Among Friends
by Christopher Stevens | Weekend Magazine for Daily Mail | June 25, 2021
Can Britbox really be the British Netflix? It offers classic dramas, star-studded new crime shows and landmark documentary series with a totally British-backed catalogue offering countless programmes from the vaults.
Ranked in the category of ’20 Terrific Shows On Britbox’ is Forsyte Saga and Wolf Hall starring Damian Lewis.
Britbox also offers classic crime series such as Happy Valley, Broadchurch, A Touch of Frost, Agatha Christie’s Poirot and Miss Marple, of which Damian makes two of his earliest television appearances in Poirot and A Touch of Frost: Deep End.
BritBox has a number of original dramas in the pipeline as well. There’s A Spy Among Friends, adapted from Ben Macintyre’s book and starring British titan Damian Lewis, which explores the true story of Kim Philby’s defection to the Soviet Union. A Cold War drama, the six-episode limited series showcases MI6 operative Nicholas Elliot and his friend (and KGB double agent) Philby through the lens of their complex relationship, intertwined with espionage. No word on filming or release date since CoVid pandemic.
BritBox is a subscription streaming service dedicated to the best of British programming past and present. It has a vast selection of archive shows from dramas and documentaries to comedies, soaps and films, and is now producing its own original programmes.
BritBox can be watched using smart TVs, Apple and Android devices, Amazon Fire TV and Chromecast and via Amazon Prime Video channels. The regular price is £5.99 ($6.99) a month or £59.99 ($69.99) a year after a seven-day free trial. Visit britbox.co.uk here or britbox.com/us here for details.
Read the rest of the original article at Weekend Magazine for Daily Mail
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Critical and Remarkable Intelligence Operations
by Staff | Sky History | June 3, 2021
Damian Lewis: Spy Wars is available now on History Play. Starring Damian Lewis in his first factual role, Damian Lewis: Spy Wars reveals remarkable true stories behind the most gripping and significant international spy operations of the last forty years. Now available on HISTORY Play, Amazon Prime UK subscribers can watch the whole series for just £0.99 along with other award-winning Sky HISTORY documentaries and factual series.
A first in the worldwide factual genre, the new series focuses on many of the most critical and remarkable operations which have defined intelligence warfare. Damian explores the action and the context of key incidents which, in several instances, brought the world to the brink of war. By presenting an all-encompassing 360-degree perspective, each case is unpacked by experts and former spies on all sides: ex-Mossad, ex-CIA, ex-KGB and ex-MI6. Damian provides an unprecedented insight into the spy operations which literally shaped today’s geo-political climate.
As part of the Smithsonian Channel family, you can now stream Spy Wars with Damian Lewis via CBS All Access/Paramount+ here beginning March 4, 2021. Paramount Plus is both a new video streaming service made for a global audience, and a rebranding of the existing CBS All Access service.
Visit the Smithsonian Channel here for more information about the series.
*Spy Wars is also available to stream on Amazon Instant Video, iTunes, Google Play, and Vudu.
For fans in Germany and Austria, here is how you can watch the series in your country.
As part of the Smithsonian Channel family, you can now stream Spy Wars with Damian Lewis via CBS All Access here. Plans are as low as $5.99/month and you can start a free trial with your first 7 days complimentary. You can cancel or change your plan at any time. Watch all 8 episodes in 7 days! Find out episode information here.
Visit the Smithsonian Channel here for more information about the series.
*Spy Wars is also available to stream on Amazon Instant Video, iTunes, Google Play, and Vudu.
For fans in Germany and Austria, here is how you can watch the series in your country.
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Watch All 8 Episodes in 7 Days For Free. Here’s How.
by Gingersnap | damian-lewis.com | May 27, 2020
Watch Damian Lewis: Spy Wars instantly on NOW TV. The series is streaming until October 6, 2020. Want to watch for free? Start your 7-day free trial of NOW’s Entertainment Pass, then it auto-renews at £8.99 a month, unless cancelled. Watch all 8 episodes in 7 days! Find out episode information here.
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Espionage in the Spotlight
by Dorothy Rabinowitz | The Wall Street Journal | March 19, 2020
Smithsonian Channel’s series tells shockingly true stories of the clandestine variety. In 1968, a loyal officer of the KGB is so shaken by the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia that he becomes an operative for British and American intelligence—one, “Spy Wars” reveals (begins Sunday, 8 p.m., Smithsonian Channel), destined to be of historic importance. This is the saga of Oleg Gordievsky—subject of the first episode of this eight-part weekly series, and a rich portrait it is. When his role of many years as a spy for the British and Americans finally becomes known to the Kremlin, quick exfiltration becomes an urgent necessity. His 1985 getaway in the trunk of a car driven by unflappable MI6 agents, who get him safely to Finland despite suspicious Russian border guards—and the howls of their alert dogs, who quiet down when the car’s driver throws them a treat—is an escape sequence to cherish.
In 2001, Robert Hanssen—one of the FBI’s most trusted agents—is unmasked as the mole who had, for 20 years, betrayed the identities of American assets in the Soviet Union and then Russia, thus ensuring their deaths at the hands of execution squads.
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Spy Wars with Damian Lewis: The Man Who Saved the World (Full Episode)
by Gingersnap | damian-lewis.com | March 15, 2020
Click here to watch video if playback below does not work.
At a time when the Cold War spying game was in full swing, Oleg Gordievsky was one of the KGB’s rising stars…and biggest traitors. For years, he provided top-secret Russian intelligence to the British, but he is best remembered for risking his life in 1983 to pull the world back from the brink of nuclear annihilation. Presented by host Damian Lewis and backed by firsthand accounts by Gordievsky himself, we detail the spy’s incredible career as a double agent and his gripping defection out of Russia.
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Official Press Release, Trailer, and Episode Guide
by Gingersnap | damian-lewis.com | February 12, 2020
NEW SERIES HOSTED BY THE EMMY® AND GOLDEN GLOBE® WINNING ACTOR TO PREMIERE SUNDAY, MARCH 22 AT 8PM ET/PT
Where to watch streaming: Hulu Live, iTunes, Amazon Prime, fuboTV (free 7-day trial), YouTube TV w/Smithsonian Channel, and Vudu.
NEW YORK – February 12, 2020 – Smithsonian Channel is set to investigate some of the most shocking and explosive cases of espionage over the last 50 years. SPY WARS WITH DAMIAN LEWIS features the incredible true stories of spy wars fought in the shadows, from the turbulent years of the Cold War to the Iran Hostage Crisis and the discovery of a complex web of sleeper agents living in the U.S. – a major inspiration for the plot of The Americans. Each episode of this new eight-part series sees host Damian Lewis revealing these remarkable tales of the secretive world of government intelligence, surveillance and international conspiracy plots with interviews from the experts and eyewitnesses that lived through them. SPY WARS WITH DAMIAN LEWIS premieres Sunday, March 22 at 8 p.m. ET/PT on Smithsonian Channel.
The series premiere episode, THE MAN WHO SAVED THE WORLD, recounts the story of Oleg Gordievsky – a KGB agent who may have singlehandedly averted World War III. Posted to the Soviet embassy in London by the KGB, Gordievsky would become disenfranchised by the Soviet agenda and, in a shocking move, flipped to become a double agent for British intelligence MI6. What was to follow was a years-long effort by Gordievsky to pass Soviet intelligence to the British, all but preventing a nuclear Armageddon between the Soviet Union and the West.
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From Espionage to History
by Debashine Thangevelo | Cape Argus / IOL / International | November 4, 2019
Damian Lewis is a recognizable face on the big and small screen. Of late, he has been praised for his roles as King Henry VIII in Wolf Hall and Bobby Axelrod in Billions. He was also cast as Steve McQueen in Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in…Hollywood. And let us not forget his role as Nicholas Brody in Homeland.
Having covered a gamut of genres, from espionage to history, it does make his latest stint as a narrator for History’s Damian Lewis: Spy Wars almost surreal.
“This Mossad mission, I’m sure 98% of people watching won’t have heard of this story. So, I think it’s a little glimpse through a window of what they did; it’s an incredible story. You will sit and watch and be utterly engaged. I think that’s true of all our stories. Even the Argo story – we come in from a slightly different angle with a bit more backstory, from the intelligence part of it rather than the film making aspect of it.”
On being a part of this project he adds, “As soon as you put yourself in front of a camera, or in front of an audience, as a performer, there’s a whole intricate web of thoughts that run through your head – how you want to be presented and how can you successfully be a credible part of your show, your story, whatever it is – and we had to work quite quickly.”
“I was flying in and out of New York from Billions and we had a budget, obviously, we had to be aware of.”
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Going Global
by Joseph O’Halloran | Rapid TV News | October 11, 2019 -and-
by Peter White | Deadline | October 11, 2019
As we head into the leading global content trade show and world’s entertainment market MIPCOM 2019 next week, A+E Networks and A+E Networks UK have signed a slew of top international broadcasters for its latest factual co-production, Damian Lewis: Spy Wars.
Earlier this year we reported here that Spy Wars was heading to the Smithsonian Channel for US markets, a joint venture between CBS Corporation’s Showtime and the Smithsonian Institute. And now it seems other broadcasters will be joining Smithsonian Channel’s lead. The docu-drama currently airing on History UK and Blaze in the UK will now be available in the following markets: Blue Ant (Canada); POP TV (Slovenia); Bilibil.com (China); TVNZ (New Zealand); Historia and Atresmedia (Spain). A+E Networks says that multiple other deals are in negotiation. No word yet when television viewing audiences in other countries will see Damian hit their small screens, but rumor has it early 2020 for US customers.
In the series, award-winning actor Damian Lewis unpacks some of the most thrilling covert missions in modern-day history with the help of new declassified information, high-profile experts, and intelligence officers who were there. The program ranges from the most notorious spy exchange of recent times to the fake film production that freed Americans during the 1979 Iranian hostage crisis to in-depth profiles of the world’s most skilled and lethal double agents and has been described as James Bond meets every John le Carré thriller you’ve ever read.
Damian Lewis: Spy Wars is executive produced by Alaska TV’s Chris Fouracre, Ian Lamarra, and Paul Sommers in association with Lewis’ own recently launched Rookery Productions with brother Gareth Lewis.
