Page 8

Plays by David Hare have always been worth watching apart from his "The Permanent Way" on which see The Permanent Way

Sir David Hare's  political position in plays at least is usually in my view similar to that of most Islington armchair socialists namely left of centre. However mrs maytrees and I both found his film "Page 8", which was first screened on the BBC in 2011 but has just appeared on Netflix riveting to watch. 

Whilst looking through critics of the film it became apparent that Page 8 first appeared on  BBC TV in 2011 and that unbeknown to us it was followed by two other similar films which have become known as the "Worricker Trilogy". Mrs maytrees and I will certainly try to view the other two films called "Turks and Caicos"  and "Salting the Battlefield" though these were made some three years after Page 8. 

The British Spy is played excellently by Bill Nighy as Johnny Worricker, MI5 analyst. Rachel Weisz as Nancy Pierpan, political activist. Michael Gambon as Benedict Baron, Director General of MI5. Judy Davis as Jill Tankard, MI5 officer collaborating with the Prime Minister. Tom Hughes as Ralph Wilson, private investigator and Jill Tankard's son.

Principal differences between the film Page 8 and so many other films on Netflix, Scandinavian, French and of course American, are firstly, David Hare thankfully does not see any need for the large number of guns and other weapons that other film writers and directors tend to consider so necessary. Secondly Page 8 is rather  like a play and more often than not concentrates on what is being said rather than  on  the action. That is not to say of course that action is absent but rather, to make sense of the action one needs to  concentrate on the dialogue. The task of concentration  is sometimes made slightly more difficult by the beautiful houses and estates where many of the scenes are filmed.

Perhaps the BBC and David Hare, consider that we in the UK should learn more foreign languages.