Tag: Guy Pearce

“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, and John Cairncross — operated in the UK from the 1930s to the 1950s, and have been well-documented on TV and film, most notably in 2003’s Cambridge Spies, starring Samuel West, Toby Stephens and Tom Hollander.

The latest take on the story takes a different approach to the story, building it around Kim Philby, here played by Memento and LA Confidential star Guy Pearce and his friendship with Damian Lewis’ Nicholas Elliott.

Continue reading REVIEW: A Spy Among Friends – A New Spin on a Well-Documented Scandal

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 as its source and inspiration. The stakes are high. This is one of the flagship dramas to launch ITV’s revamped online player and new subscription service. It comes with a starry cast and what should be an irresistible tale of intrigue, double-crossing and suspense, stretched out over multiple locations from Istanbul, Beirut and London to Moscow and Ohio.

Continue reading REVIEW: A Spy Among Friends – Don’t Take Your Eyes Off This Star-Packed Espionage Thriller

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 he deceive his enemies, but also his allies at MI6.

An original series made for ITV’s shiny new streaming service, ITVX, A Spy Among Friends is an carefully crafted intelligence thriller about Philby — the Englishman who was outed as a double agent for the Soviet Union in the early 1960s. Like the recent BBC hit SAS Rogue Heroes, the show is a dramatisation based on an immersive history by the author Ben Macintyre. But where the former was a hot-headed affair, this six-parter is poised, patient and, fittingly for a story largely set during the cold war, touched by a certain froideur.

Continue reading REVIEW: Guy Pearce and Damian Lewis In a Poised Tale of Betrayal

“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 it’s very good – intricate, deft and thrilling with just the right sort of TV set pieces to keep things rollicking around – but also a lot of it is just “two people having a conversation in a room, both of them smoking in a very 60s way”, and you do have to actively watch it to know what’s going on.

There’s fun old-school espionage and big old-fashioned tape recorders and men in their shirtsleeves sweating in rooms while listening to a bug, and everyone keeps offering each other tea in a way that seems too deliberately innocuous to be anything other than a ruse. Guy Pearce is playing opposite Damian Lewis and they are both acting their absolute heads off, which is always fun. And there is no way this whole thing doesn’t end with a clever twist.

Continue reading A Spy Among Friends: An Extremely Good Espionage Thriller