2010 TV Preview: 'The Prisoner' 2010 TV Preview: 'The Prisoner' Click in to find out more about the modern day remake of cult classic The Prisoner. Don't Miss Share 32 minutes ago 10:55 AM Share 1 hour ago 10:23 AM Share 10 hours ago 1:14 AM 10 hours ago 1:04 AM Latest News Share 32 minutes ago 10:55 AM Share 1 hour ago 10:23 AM Share 9 hours ago 2:14 AM 10 hours ago 1:14 AM Must Read Share 18 hours ago 5:00 PM Share 12 hours ago 10:46 PM Share 19 hours ago 3:44 PM Share January 19 2017 11:21 AM 11 December 2009 6:14 AM Shares Advertisement - Continue Reading Below One of the most beloved and iconic of classic cult shows, The Prisoner is about to be reborn for a modern day audience in a new six-episode series for ITV.

The story is faithful to the original (man wakes up in a bizarre gated community, bereft of personal identity) and the cast is huge (Jim Caviezel is Number Six, while Sir Ian McKellen (r) plays looming leader Number Two). In the next of our 2010 Previews, Tube Talk speaks to chief screenwriter Bill Gallagher to find out more about The Prisoner's resurrection. How did the production come about? "Damien Timmer, who was with Granada at the time, had long wanted to make an updated version of The Prisoner but couldn't track down who had the TV rights. Originally it was made by a company called ABC - now defunct - so the rights had gone elsewhere. Eventually he found out that actually the rights belonged to Granada International, who were one floor up from him! It took him two years to find that out. Once they had the rights they called me out of the blue one evening and asked if I would like to write a remake of The Prisoner. I was thrilled. I loved it as a kid.

I couldn't make sense of it but it had a real impact on me and it was unlike anything else on television, so I jumped in immediately and then thought 'Well, how am I going to do this?'" Did you have a list of things you want to keep from the original? "I just thought 'What was the essence of it? What is it that makes it so different and compelling?' The obvious thing is a man in this place called The Village - but what is it? How did he get there? How does he get out? Such a nightmare experience, that. Also the way of storytelling. It wasn't a conventional narrative, it was strange ways of telling stories. My approach was to take the essence of it, but also it would have been pointless to repeat the original, so I just responded to it with 'these are the questions and dilemmas the original posed, what are the dilemmas now?'" The original was very much a social commentary too - has that been maintained? "It is but it's more oblique, less overt. There was the Cold War and a kind of assertion of the individual - 'I'm a free man' - those kinds of '60s concerns.

It would have been easy to do a version that invokes terrorism - a kind of surface version - but the battles are more subtle these days. The world is different and so much more accessible in some respects. We're all bloody Americans now! Also I think I wanted to make it a bit more about the state of human beings, not looking in terms of political battles but what is going on within the individual. How have we changed? Where are we going as individuals? One of the notions I came up with was, 'what if we become so obsessed with our individuality that it's dangerous?' Dangerous on the small scale in relationships, families and communities, but also dangerous on a vast scale so it's actually affecting our means of functioning." Advertisement - Continue Reading Below You've got a great cast. Can you tell us more about them and their characters? "James Caviezel plays Number 6. He's an individual who works for a vast corporation, where there's a mammoth amount of surveillance going on. It's not so much for crime or any sinister means, but it's for mass observation - patterns of behaviour, patterns in lifestyle - and he starts to see things in his work that make him think something is happening so he reports it.

Once he's reported it he wakes up in the village. His battle is: What is this place? Why am I here? How do I get out? He pretty soon realises he can't escape physically so he's left with the question of 'What is this place?' "Ian McKellen plays Number 2. In the original series there was a different Number 2 every week but I wanted to dig into the character of Number 2 - I didn't want to make him a two-dimensional monster figure who controlled the village. I wanted to get inside the man so I gave him a family, I gave him a story, a moral dilemma, and I gave him doubt in himself. We sent [Ian] the scripts and he said he would do it straight away. We met in a restaurant in London and as he came in the restaurant I stood up to greet him. He gave me a hug, patted me on the head and said 'What goes on in that mind of yours, Bill?' I think he was really taken by the daring of the script. It was full of menace and madness and strangeness. Something you had to dig into rather than having it on a plate.

Once we got Ian I went back through the scripts and rewrote his character. Not the story or events, but the way he speaks. I knew he would have this wonderful twinkling playful menace about him, which is fantastic. " This was an international collaboration between AMC and ITV. Were there any particular challenges in creating a show that worked for both audiences? "Not really. As I said earlier we're all Americans now and although I say that with my tongue in my cheek, we do have access to every blink of an eye all over the world. The village is this strange place and you don't know where it is, it's an international place - it's not a particularly English place. In terms of the identity of the show it's not a case of an English writer writing for an American audience, that wasn't the sensibility of it. Therefore things like characterisation and setting wasn't a concern. It's not set in a part of America or Britain or Italy, it's set in a world where all of us could be in that dilemma." It's now aired on AMC in the US. Were you pleased with how it performed and the reaction? "I was.

There was a conventional experience of prior-to-broadcast, broadcast, reviews, reactions, audience figures - all of which went well. The new experience for me was the Twitter reactions, where I was reading the audience experience as they were watching it. That was phenomenal - like something out of The Prisoner! They were figuring it out and sharing their thoughts and giving reactions. As a writer, you spend two or three years on something and put it out there, then a few North London critics give you two paragraphs, but it was phenomenal to experience what people were going through as they watched it." Finally, is there a possibility of a second series? "It's a miniseries. That was the brief in the beginning and it always had that beginning, middle and end. Of course I didn't write it in order to do this but given that The Village still exists, I suppose it is possible for there to be another series. It hasn't gone out in England yet though so we're just getting to the end of this one. Artistically it's possible, but whether the world wants another one I don't know!" Are you looking forward to the remake of The Prisoner? Add your comments to this entry below!

Additional reporting by Philippa Warr Review: TV Mini-Series - The Prisoner - HeyUGuys Reddit0 0shares The Prisoner has been resurrected to our screens after nearly 50 years since the original TV series which starred Patrick McGoohan. This new 6 part mini series boasts a cast of a listers which includes Sir Ian McKellen, Vincent Regan, James Caviezel, Ruth Wilson, Lennie James and fresh from Twilight: New Moon and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part II, Jamie Campbell Bower and is directed by Nick Hurran. This entire series was shot in Namibia for 18 weeks and the scenery is simply fabulous. I cant claim to have seen the original but think of The Prisoner as a mix between Lost and The Truman Show except in this case, no one has a name but a number. The Prisoner focuses on Jim Caviezel’s character, ‘6’ who awakens one day to find himself in this strange world where there The Village is the beginning and end of the world which seemingly has no way out. He has multiple memories of a world we all know which everyone claims are mad thoughts that 6 has no evidence of ever happening.

Ian McKellen, ‘Two’ is the leader of The Village and blocks all of 6’s attempts to escape. The series is compelling with a great cast and great dialogue but it is rather slow paced and although the direction and beautiful scenery never get tiresome, the slow moving storyline is hard to get past. Caviezel plays a great part never really knowing what is going on with the fabulous Ian McKellen giving a performance that we’ve become completely accustomed to. Both Lennie James, Hayley Atwell, Vincent Regan and Ruth Wilson are also perfectly cast but again, the pace of each episode is far too slow. It was great to see Jim Caviezel back on screen as I think he’s such a great and underrated actor. If you like movies like Gattaca, Equilibrium, The Truman Show or even TV series, Lost, then The Prisoner is definitely another mysterious story to watch and be enjoyed. The Prisoner is released on DVD & Blu Ray 3rd May and is coming to ITV soon so keep your eyes peeled.

The Prisoner, ITV1 | The Arts Desk Home > tv > The Prisoner, ITV1 The Prisoner, ITV1 | reviews, news & interviews The Prisoner, ITV1 Remake of classic Sixties series fails to escape from its past by Adam Sweeting Sunday, 18 April 2010 Share Jim Caviezel and Sir Ian McKellen wonder where all the good lines went in the remade Prisoner "The ultimate battle! Jesus versus Magneto!" raved one sci-fi blogger (ironically), on seeing that this Anglo-American remake of The Prisoner stars Jim The Passion of the Christ Caviezel and Sir Ian X-Men McKellen. If only. Unfortunately the new Prisoner's dominant characteristics are its sluggish tempo, limited vision and inability to drag itself out of the shadow of the Patrick McGoohan original. Critics were queueing up to dole out kickings to the new Prisoner even before the first episode, which seemed a trifle cruel. Even Private Eye's "Remote Controller" weighed in with a merciless pre-emptive disembowelling.

But although your reviewer strives for even-handedness at all times, the best he can say about it is that at least it picked a uniquely fascinating and creative series to try to recreate. "Uniquely " being the operative word. Ever since the arrival of the pop-video era, the delusional notion has been allowed to take root that if you pick a classic movie or TV programme to rip off, then your ripped-off version will axiomatically inherit all the kudos that has accrued to the original. Listen up, schmucks - it doesn't work! This new-millennial Prisoner might have succeeded as a mildly diverting afternoon soap with a sci-fi twist, but as challenging drama designed to rock the pillars of our insidious Big Brother society, with its creeping tendrils of mind control and 360-degree surveillance, it's not even a rival forThe Man from U.N.C.L.E. and that was totally idiotic.

Still, episode one did manage to muster a smidgeon of mystery and intrigue with its opening sequence of Caviezel, whom we would soon discover had been assigned the original McGoohan role of Number Six, waking up in an amnesiac daze to find himself in a parched desert, watching a squad of armed men hunting down an elderly and infirm gentleman. This turned out to be none other than Number Ninety-Three, shortly thereafter deceased. Caviezel staggered across the rocks and dunes until he stumbled into what appears to be a gated community for the affluent retirees of Palm Springs. In fact the series was shot in the Namibian seaside resort of Swakopmund, which possesses precisely none of the trompe l'oeil weirdness of the original's Portmeirion. To Jim's amazement, he found that everyone in the so-called Village (pictured) already knew he was Number Six, and he had been allocated a home furnished exactly like the one he thought he used to live in back in the real world.

The Village is run by Number Two (McKellen), who flounces around in a white suit and panama hat reassuring everyone that their boring Stepford-zombie existence represents the pinnacle of the human condition. Anybody caught muttering about a bigger world outside or some place called New York is liable to be blown up or disappeared, like the luckless Ninety-Three. The gaping hole in the concept is that they've tried to impose conventional notions of plot on to an idea that succeeded originally because it was hallucinogenic, non-linear, scary, comical, grotesque and yet whimsically British all at the same time. An even pottier extension of the later period of The Avengers, if you will. There's the occasional lame nod to McGoohan's blueprint - somebody keeps driving past in a Morris 1000, "Be seeing you" makes a comeback as a Village catchphrase, and every now and again Caviezel protests that "I am not a number, I'm a free man!" But Caviezel radiates none of the charismatic stroppiness that was McGoohan's stock-in-trade, and it was an important ingredient of the original show that Number Two kept being played by different actors.

I guess once you've signed up Sir Ian you feel obliged to use him as intensively as possible. Perhaps above all, the new Prisoner has been caught flat-footed by events. During the several years during which it inched towards production, that pesky anglophile and sci-fi nut JJ Abrams came along and comprehensively aced everything The Prisoner wanted to be with Alias and, especially, Lost. Abrams will freely admit his debts to history, but he brings a dose of anarchy and spurts of true inspiration to the party. Watch the trailer to The Prisoner The Prisoner: BFI Transcript | Life of Wylie Life of Wylie Jim Caviezel as Six THE return of an old friend tonight, re-invented for the 21st century. ITV1’s new version of 1960s’ cult classic The Prisoner may not attract a massive audience, despite its primetime slot. But having seen the first episode three times, as well as later episodes, I’d recommend that if it seems like something for you – watch, and try and stick with it.

I was lucky enought to discuss The Prisoner 2010 over afternoon tea with Sir Ian McKellen, who plays Two. You can read the feature interview here. I was also invited along to the premiere of the first two episodes in London’s West End last November. Just as the six episodes in this ITV / AMC co-production were being broadcast in America. Last Wednesday night I went along to the BFI Southbank to see another “exclusive screening” of episode one in a cinema packed with fans. Followed by a Q&A involving American actor Jim Caviezel, who plays The Prisoner – Six / Michael. Also on stage was actress Hayley Atwell, who co-stars as Lucy / 4-15. Plus director Nick Hurran, executive producer Michele Buck, designer Michael Pickwoad and discussion chairman Matthew Sweet. Below is my full transcription of the BFI event. If you’ve come to this page ahead of seeing the first episode, you may want to bookmark to read afterwards. Unless you can’t wait. Otherwise it’s a bit of a long read but, hopefully, some of The Prisoner fans past, present and future might appreciate it.

My own suspicion is that many critics will miss the point of this new series and not have the patience to persevere. But that, like the original, it will become a cult of its own, with its own history. Six and Two The Q&A covered quite a bit of ground, including discussion of Rover, Hayley’s very spooky mail delivery that same day and the extraordinary location of Swakopmund on the Namibian coast. And just how many clues you will probably miss on first viewing of episode one. Matthew asked the first set of questions immediately after the screening, before opening it up to the audience: Q: “What’s the relevance of this story now?” Nick Hurran: “Why visit it now? It (the original) was very much a product of the time…very much a political commentary and now still inspired by the idea of conflict with individuals and the State or our society, the desire to resist and rebel against that authority. I think post-9/11, post financial crash, it’s as relevant to be re-asking those questions about our personal liberty.” Q: “What are you trying to provoke in us because there are some pretty provocative images that you offer us here?

We just saw one at the end of this episode, those grey glass twin towers?” Nick Hurran: “There’s many images. There’s many images that harp back to pay sort of a quick doffing of the hat to where it’s come from. Images of nightmare and control. It’s how much we want to go for that freedom or allow ourselves to be controlled. Somewhere, The Village offers a sanctuary. Everybody’s happy. As long as you don’t ask too many questions, everything will be lovely. A man enters who wants to ask some questions.” Q: “What’s so alarming about The Village, Jim Caviezel, is that it’s a world in which quite a lot of people would like to live. There’s something sort of reassuring about it and something seductive about it. When people talk about the kind of world that they want, it might have something in common with that rather frightening world that we see on screen? Is there a sense in which this is a series about something that’s out there in the real world? Is this a sort of picture of America that’s being offered here?” Jim Caviezel: “I think there’s a little bit in it for everybody, you know.

And still I find it very entertaining. I had no preconceived notions of it. I didn’t even know what The Prisoner was. I just thought (writer) Bill Gallagher wrote a brilliant piece of material and I read it and it jumped off the page at me. I think that it’s something that is worth a view and something more than that. It’s something I think that’s going to last.” Hayley Atwell as Lucy / 4-15 Q: “Did you decide to investigate the original version or remain unpolluted by knowledge of it?” Jim Caviezel: “No, no. I didn’t check out any of the Jesus roles, either. Or the Monte Cristos. I wanted it to be my own take. In much the same way that the original dealt with….the Cold War…now one man could exchange his life for millions, for an ideal. It has all that but still there’s a lot of great energy to it. There’s a lot of eye candy involved in that. Nick shot something really beautiful, Hayley’s wonderful in it, I’m pretty good (smiling).” Q: “Are you going to look at it?” Jim Caviezel: “At the original? Absolutely.

When this is all said and done. It’s sitting on my TV at home. When I’m done with this, I’ve been waiting for this whole thing to be over with and I’m going to watch all of it. I notice this guy over here (in the front row), he’s got the jacket on.” Q: “Michele Buck, when this series ran originally it was a programme that ITV were sort of slightly freaked out and scared of, wasn’t it? It was put in a very strange slot, it wasn’t something that was entirely popular with the people who commissioned it. How can we be sure that history won’t repeat itself?” Michele Buck: “Well, it was like that on the first airing and then it became a cult and then people loved it. When we looked at it, it is relevant to today with security cameras and we can track everyone by their credit cards. So we are living in that state where we’re totally controlled. So it felt relevant. It is a bold piece of television. It was bold in its day and our version – although we take the same conceits of the original, we’ve invented it in a more filmic modern way.

But it’s funadmentally at its core, it has the same values. So for ITV it is a bold commission and, actually, hurrah, because it shows that ITV have the breadth and the confidence to want to put out different pieces. And it’s got a terrific slot. It’s on Saturday night. You’re going to get most generations at 9.30, so it’s good.” Ian McKellen as Two Q: “Is this still the same programme, The Prisoner, in the same way that, say, the new Doctor Who is clearly still the old Doctor Who?” Michele Buck: “Well, I think we’ve taken more liberties than that. And I think we wanted to. Doctor Who is Doctor Who. What we’ve done is taken what was at the core. The core of this was, ‘Why was this man captured? What were they after? Who was in charge? Where was the real world?’ We’ve taken those same conceits. We did nod to the original. The fans out there will know the episode titles and, of course, we’ve kept Rover. There’s a Penny Farthing somewhere.

And originally we had an idea that the old man at the front might have been played by Patrick (McGoohan) and we did talk about it and he was quite ill and LA-bound. And actually died while we were making it. So we never quite got there.” Q: “What kind of conversations did you have with him about it?” Michele Buck: “Will you play the old man?” (laughter) Nick Hurran: “He said, ‘There’s only one part I want to play.’ I think Ian McKellen was playing it.” Michele Buck: “So we are tipping our hat to the original and for people that know the original there’s lots of fun in it for them to see and there’s lines of dialogue. Bill the writer was reverential to it, but we did re-invent it.” Q: “A lot of the nodding has been done by you, in effect, hasn’t it, Michael? There are allusions to the aesthetics of the Englishman in there?” Michael Pickwoad: “Yes, there are certain things. The nature of the place being a very out of place place, like Portmeirion was a strange town built in Wales.

Swakopmund is a strange town built by Germans in Africa and it’s like Darmstadt-on-Sea with palm trees. It’s strange and peculiar and has a very simplified childlike quality with goes with the safeness, making it a very desirable place to be in. And certainly there’s a chessboard in 93’s flat…a sixties flat with the big round arch and things. Not slavishly but just so it jogs the memory.” A clip was then shown on the big screen of Patrick McGoohan’s original arrival in The Village – with Jim Caviezel turning around in his chair on stage to come face-to-face with his 1960s’ counterpart. Ruth Wilson as 313 Q: “Michele, we talked about ITV’s attitude to this series historically. What do you think it is that’s in the atmosphere right now that, in a way, allows a series as elliptical, as opaque as this to be going out at 9.30 on a Saturday night? Is there something in the air?

Are audiences more accepting of that kind of strangeness?” Michele Buck: “If you look at ITV’s commissioning, they have Collision, was a bold piece of drama, Lost In Austen. And if we look at the Americans with Lost and even going back to Twin Peaks, every so often we’ll all do something like that. Most of those shows, of course, the Losts and The Truman Show, all those, they all owe their roots back to this show. It was the first one.” Nick Hurran: “Just watching that (the original), you go, I’d love to have been there in the office with ITV when they sat down and go, ‘Now I’ve got this idea…there’s this big ball that comes up…’ And also now moving forward, re-making it, what a fantastically brave decision to take that, to move forward. It’s not an easy sell. But a brave piece of drama and where the central core remains. You said, ‘It almost looks like you want to be there.’ Well lots of people when we were out filming were going, ‘Well wait a minute, this really feels like we’d actually want to be here.

You’d actually want to be part of this, where everything is provided, where everything’s smiling and lovely all day long.’ And that is what attracts a big audience, I hope. It’s a central theme of – are we better to be controlled or do we want that freedom at the sacrifice of some of the joy that that can bring?” Q: “But to tell that story in such a non-linear kind of way, to have this narrative which is very fractured..?” Nick Hurran: “It’s fantastic to encourage more inventive ways of storytelling. Television has gone such a long way to push the boundaries of dramatic storytelling now. I think in some respects, as much, if not more than film in many British and American series. There’s a place for everything, for linear storytelling, for non-linear storytelling. But I think audiences now really like to be on the edge of their seats. What’s happening? Where are we going?” Michele Buck: “And at the heart of this series, every episode has a story and it is a story of love, betrayal, rivalry. In each episode, without ruining any of it, there is a self-contained adventure that happens and it’s just good storytelling.

It just happens to be in The Village and it happens to be in a modern way of doing it. But it’s actually storytelling. And that’s what people want to watch. This is just a modern way of re-inventing an old friend.” The Village Nick Hurran: “I was amazed watching – I haven’t seen that first episode for quite some time – how many clues are in that first episode as to where it goes and what happens. It expands. There are many things that I hope you go back and see afterwards and go, ‘Oh God, that’s what that was.’” Q: “What exactly are these clues to? Is this as open as the original?” Jim Caviezel: “Early on, I’d only read the first four and then five and six came and Bill sat with me in New York and he told what was going to happen in five and six. I’ve never agreed to do anything unless I’ve read it. But from what he told me, I said, ‘Bill, if that’s what you’re going to do, then I agree to do this piece.’ And I just wanted to say one thing about this guy (Nick), this is not just a director, this is a film-maker.

Extraordinary.” Q: “Was it important for you to be, in a way, given the key to the mystery?” Jim Caviezel: “Look, even when we were shooting it, I was barely getting the scenes that I had. At the time they were being, ‘OK, here this is re-written,’ and walk out and go on out to do it. It’s probably the only time that I’ve ever had to look down at cheat sheets a few times, when I was with Hayley there. She’s a great actress and she went with it. And also our set designer here was extraordinary. The sets we had – Swakopmund…when someone doesn’t get in the way themselves…he could easily have gone in there and started nailing things up. But he took what was there and used what was there. Many Americans are blown away when they find out that that place really exists. Those little teepee houses realy exist.” Q: “How did you find the location?” Michael Pickwoad: “It’s been a place that’s been stayed in many times by film makers who use the desert, which, of course, we do as well.

But I think we were the first film to actually use Swakopmund as the town. And it became more and more perfect as we went along. You realised that it was the African Portmeirion. It was this place that shouldn’t exist at all but does. And it was like everything you know and it was like Germany. But it wasn’t. Everything’s rather simplified. The original was in the sixties, when that was modern and brave. Of course, we used the sixties as the ‘safe’. It’s a time that’s near enough but long enough ago, it would have been when people’s mothers and grandmothers lived. It’s then. And so by harking back to a style which is quite well known now, it became a rather sweet and rather cosy existence. All the interiors were based on that. Everything had something that somebody would know.” I am not a number. I am a free man Q: “Hayley, how was it for you working in this strange location? What sort of atmosphere does this town have?” Hayley Atwell: “It was very odd. It was extraordinary.

We were there for about three or four months (including studios in Cape Town) and it felt like we were, in a way, kind of imprisoned as actors. As JIm said, we didn’t have the final scripts, so we were all very much working day to day, scene by scene. In a way, ironically, it actually meant that there was a real freedom within that, because it meant that as actors, it felt that we all had to be quite present with it. We all had loads of conversations and arguments about what we thought was going on and points of view from everyone’s character. I hadn’t actually seen the original. I was ‘minus one’ when it came out, so I didn’t feel like I had the pressure of any of that going on. But what was great about it, this particular feel of what we were doing, is that every character – and you’ll see later on – they’re long and three-dimensional. Everyone has a journey and a reason as to what’s going on and why they’re there. Particularly the women are a lot more rounded. And that was wonderful to play.

“A very odd thing that happened today was…a year and a half ago I had a break of about two weeks, where I wasn’t working on set. So I flew back to London. The rest of the cast were gagging for some Sunday papers and some PG Tips and some Dairy Milk. So I sent a massive box. Two weeks later I fly back and it turns out the box didn’t arrive. We said, ‘That’s so weird, that’s so Prisoner, that’s amazing. “The weirdest thing is that at about two ‘o clock this afternoon, the doorbell goes and it’s the package. It was completely battered and bruised. I don’t know what happened to it or where it went. But for it to arrive today of all days when this is happening tonight. It’s so weird. The whole experience was quite bizarre. You have to kind of let go and go with it and I’m really pleased I did because it was a very special experience.” Q: “Is that how it was for you, Jim? All sorts of doubt about what’s going on.

All the normal things that an actor has to hold on to are just not there?” Jim Caviezel: “It could have been in a studio but you wouldn’t have seen the kind of performances. I generally like hard and tough conditions. They do something to you physically and you see it up there. I remember lugging that guy up and down that hill (the old man in the first episode). Man, I had a back problem for the rest of the picture. When I was walking into the village there, I was limping in, and I really was limping.” Q: “But is it important for you, when you play a scene in this series, to have a very firm idea of what’s going on in it? What everything means, what the nuances are?” Jim Caviezel: “Sure. It had a structure but there was a bit of a rough draft about it. Obviously we had a direction where we wanted to go. But beneath everything, from some great directors that I’ve worked with, and I know a great one when I see one, as Nick is. But to listen to him – you have a captain and you really know that we’re heading in the right direction.

I felt that, even though some of the stuff had to be changed and re-done. And, of course, Swakopmund was dictating a certain element to it too and you’ve got to be able to go with that.” There is no New York. There is only The Village Nick Hurran: “I think the first episode really gives a taster of where it goes because it does become more surreal, more psychological, for where these guys (the actors) have to go in their heads. It does become much more akin to where the original goes as a psychological thriller. They had to go to some fairly dark places. Where Six goes and where his character is taken to, the first one is really quite conventional in comparision to where it goes.” Q: “How dark did it get for you then, Jim? What dark places were you taken to?” Jim Caviezel: “There’s a therapy place I (Six) went to. I found as it went along and I got to, obviously, see the whole thing, it just gets better and better and you get more involved in, and you really invest in these characters. And anything can happen. Anybody can die. Even me. I could come back from the dead.

Of all the pieces of work I’ve done, it’s right up there. Ian McKellen is just a genius, like a teacher. I’ve worked with a few actors that think a lot of themselves. He could and I’d still respect him. But he’s just a humble guy that really made me better.” Q: “Michael, can I ask you a bit more about creating the look for this series? Because if there’s one thing that has survived in the cultural memory of this, it’s the visuals, isn’t it? It’s that font, it’s the architecture of Portmeirion. Did you go about looking for analogues of those things?” Michael Pickwoad: “Yes, there was always that sense of this created place about Portmeirion. Swakopmund is a bit more stretched out than that – it’s a bigger place. The feel of it, it was walking through the street with these sand surfaces, it was like walking through a Hopper painting. It was more a detatched one step from a reality. But it was real. And I must say, after you’d been there for a week or two you became quite Village yourself.

You were trapped in this little place which, like on the map we made, it is in the middle of nowhere. You see it from the aeroplane if you fly over it and go to Cape Town and there’s nothing else. It’s just there in the middle of absolutely nowhere. So that helped as well. You used the sense that it gave you. And then we had to build the cafe and we had to build the interiors of various things but you based it on that and twisted it around a bit to make it work for you.” Q: “Hopper’s in there, Goya is in there too, I think, with your tree?” Michael Pickwoad: “The tree, yes. Strange subliminal images come in. Certainly one of the sets we haven’t seen – the dark interrogation room, this was this place where people go. And you thought, ‘Well, go for it. This is The Prisoner.’ So you can go back to the sort of sixties sci-fi but also you look at American aeroplanes now, it’s very modern. In fact, the sixties is very relevant in visual terms now. Everyone knows the sixties. It’s a sort of iconic time. It doesn’t go away.

So you can play on that and somehow bring what was then up to date.” Q: “Allusions to the old series – a lava lamp and..?” Michael Pickwoad: “Certainly those are the things that you think, ‘What did it say, what was it showing?’ And you just bring them in. You just throw these elements in.” Reserve your plot now Matthew Sweet then threw open questions to the audience: Man No 1: “First of all congratulations to all concerned for having pulled off Hamlet without the ghost, so to speak. There’s a ghostly theme about the whole project. As is well known, this project was fraught with tremendous difficulties. Looking back on it, what were the worst of these difficulties, the most challenging?” Michele Buck: “Anything of this scale, even to have the concept of this scale is hard. So the original thing of doing a big co-production in itself is an immense task. As it happened, AMC and ITV, once they were pitched, they were always very committed to it. It was easy once we said we were doing a big co-production with definite partners and we started.

I suppose, honestly, starting a production where Bill knew where he was going with it, but we started production before he’d finished writing it. That’s always tricky. Although I would argue it probably allowed us to see what was really working and refine it. There were script changes. But when you saw something that was really working or something that, maybe, you weren’t working enough, rather than be pigeon-holed into what we thought we were going to do, we would then experiment and say, ‘Could we change the set? Could we do this?’ We were always trying to make it better and react to the original. Because the original was quite crazy. And that was hard. And it’s sometimes hard doing a drama without a traditional beginning, middle and end. We’ve got to put our own framework in it in terms of pace and energy and still do good storytelling. So the project was hard but it’s not a conventional drama.” Man No 2: “First of all to add my congratulations as well. I think for most people, one of the most iconic images associated with The Prisoner is the big white ball.

Now my question for Nick is – was there ever at any point any consideration or discussion about updating that or even trying the show without it?” Nick Hurran: “I don’t think discussion is the word that could possibly get anywhere near how much talk went in to Rover. It’s the first thing anybody says to you. When you say ‘The Prisoner,’ they go, ‘Is Rover in it? Is it the white ball?’ There was endless discussions about Rover. I took heart in researching that. The Prisoner fans will know that Rover was a big mistake. They’d spent a lot of money on the original series on a big mechanical thing that would float and be all sorts of different menaces. And it sank on the first day of filming and they couldn’t get it back. So they improvised with these weather balloons and created one of our big icons of British television. So we try transparent Rover and we tried chrome Rover and we tried all sorts of menace. And everybody unanimously sat and went, ‘Well where’s Rover?’ So, yes, endless discussions and we’re really happy that our friend returned. Again, discussions about – should he be in the first film, should he wait until the second film to be revealed? It’s tricky.

But right at the very end we were doing some extra bits of stills photography down by Eastbourne somewhere. Just some stills. And I said, ‘Let’s take along a real weather balloon, because it’s the first time we’ve taken out a real weather balloon, and just see if we can do some stills with it.’ And all the people on the beach went, ‘Ooh, are you filming The Prisoner?’ Because they knew this white balloon. They’re very friendly, apart from ours.” Who lives in a house like this? Man No 3: “There was uproar when the last episode (of the original) went out. I have to be careful how I frame this question because I have cheated, in a way, and seen the whole story on the Region 1 DVD. I’m not going to give anything away but – what will constitute success at the end of this? Are you looking for that cult effect, are you looking for big audience figures, are you looking for controversy?” Michele Buck: “I don’t think The Prisoner…it was never mainstream drama, ever. So I think we’d be delusional if we thought it was going to be mainstream drama with those viewing figures.

On the other hand, ITV have given it a very good slot on a Saturday night which will attract a certain audience. And I think the old Prisoner fans will come to it and maybe some new people will be curious. But it’s not conventional storytelling. So I suppose if a segment of the ITV audience love it and the critics quite like it and we haven’t totally offended the original Prisoner fans, I think that will be a success.” Man No 3: “Would one success be future conventions in Swakopmund?” (Laughter) Michele Buck: “That would be lovely. We would all love to go back there because it is a fantastically whacky place and we were very happy in Swakopmund.” Nick Hurran: “I think everybody was aiming to make brave, thought-provoking spectacular entertainment. I don’t think you can emulate what Patrick McGoohan did. I don’t think you could ever. And everybody was very conscious – we were aware someone was trying to be too…everyone rein back in because you can’t do that again. I don’t think you can possible repeat that. So it is for a wider audience. I’m at an advantage as well, I’ve seen all six.

There are more answers. It is epic entertainment.” Michele Buck: “What we didn’t want to do is, I think, to have just gone on some mad extravaganza and not give any answers at the end, I think everyone would have been really cross with us, because that just feels cheating. We have tried to put in answers to all the very difficult questions we set ourselves. And only when you get to episode six will we know whether or not the audience are satisfied by that. But we have attempted that and we tried to…there was something strange in the original but actually the world wasn’t such a scary place. Now with videos on every corner – do we have privacy, don’t we have privacy, do we trust our government, are they lying to us? Are the banks telling the truth? Our level of personal paranoia is much higher now than it ever was in those days. We’ve tried to feed a bit of that in so it has a contemporary relevance, so it feels like it has some touchstones with today and it has answers. So we’ve tried to get the balance and you’ll all tell me afterwards whether or not we got it right.” Man No 3: “I think it’s very successful.

A tightrope walked very well – as an old fan of the old series.” Patrick McGoohan as No Six in the original series Man No 4: “I find it fascinating that 40 years later, the issues still say the same, Everywhere now there’s conspiracy. Everyone’s talking about hoaxes and all sorts of things.” Man No 5: “Patrick McGoohan played the part sardonic and surly and quite aggressive and intense all the way through and he didn’t have a love interest. I just wondered…could you have that kind of performance now? Do you think that would work for a modern audience? Because Jim’s portrayal seemed really a lot more subtle and nuanced and almost metrosexual.” (laughter) Hayley Atwell: “It reminded me of when I saw Daniel Craig doing Bond and he got all emotional and thinking that it was a modern man compared to the earlier Bonds. And from watching Jim I felt that as well, that there was a lot more nuances and subtleties which are far more up to date. Jim does it brilliantly because it’s very believable and in doing that he doesn’t lose any of his manliness at all.

That’s my answer.” (laughter) Q: ‘Isn’t this odd because this Number Six is a more normal kind of guy than Patrick McGoohan’s character. What was he (Patrick) – we assumed that he was an agent, some kind of spy? Whereas we know that this Number Six is…well…he seems to be a man who watches people..?” Michele Buck (smiling): “I’m sure we can’t answer that question.” Man No 6: “Was any thought ever given at any stage to use one of the other iconic aspects of the original series, which was the theme music?” Michele Buck: “Yes. It was discussed and dismissed. Because we weren’t trying to replicate the original series, We were trying to just take the themes and update it and present a Prisoner relevant to today. And the music belonged in that era. It didn’t translate. It didn’t work for us.” Nick Hurran: “It’s a very different time now, 40-odd years on, to create something as uncomfortable – undoubtedly the brilliant original series was really uncomfortable. The aim, obviously, is to try and build the pressure of the uncomfort through the six episodes.

And the music of the sixties era is almost now a pastiche and almost a cliche. It would become like a sketch show. We tried to hint at ‘you’re here’ in taxis and cars and cafes and things. There is, again, a nod at that sound of the era. But for the score itself, which I think Rupert Gregson-Williams has done the most magnificent score for this – it’s really uncomfortable but very contemporary.” Man No 7: “In the original series there was obviously suspense, there was intrigue, there was surrealism. But there was also a sort of wry, dry humour going on. This episode obviously has lots of intrigue, there’s lots of unanswered question, it really makes me want to go and wait for the second episode to come out. There was some hints at humour, obviously with the fold-out map scene. But I wondered whether you were intending on, perhaps, putting more humour into this to sort of balance the intrigue within the series?” Michele Buck: “You’re only seeing a little bit of Ian in this one and his character has that tone to his performance.

So there’s more from Ian when he’s there.” Nick Hurran: “I think, again, the irony, the wit of the original series, it’s a slightly different tone to where this series has gone. There are some great, priceless witty scenes to come. It’s in a slightly different tone as in the performance. It’s not an angry man. It’s not of that era. The tone, the wit, is perhaps more contemporary now as well.” If you’ve made it this far, thanks for reading. Be seeing you… THE PRISONER (2010) full season Episode Guide and reviews on the SCI FI FREAK SITE The New Avengers Series Overview In the sixties THE PRISONER was an examination of its times wrapped up in arcane symbolism and trippy storytelling. Over its run, it considered big ideas such as freedom, social responsibility, madness and betrayal before becoming just plain wierd. It's 2010 and perhaps the themes of freedom and social responsibility are even more significant today than they were then as global terrorism leads to erosions of freedom and the surveillance culture runs amok. Time perhaps to revisit THE PRISONER.

This new version comes as a six part mini-series and certainly doesn't stick to the template of the original, going its own way. Sadly, its own way seems to be into murky direction and odd edits trying to make the shoe seem much more significant than it really is. The central performances from John Caviezel as Six and Sir Ian McKellen as Two are chopped to pieces, making it impossible for either to create a coherent character Occasional dips into the imagery of the original show, such as the balloon-like Rovers, are such garbled-throwaway moments that of you aren't conversant with the original then they would be utterly meaningless. The time is indeed ripe for a re-examination of the themes of THE PRISONER , but this remake is an opportunity not so much wasted as drowned in noise. Top Arrival A man wakes up in some mountainous deserts with no memory of where he is or how he got there. He encounters someone who is being chased and who identifies himself as 93 before he dies. Shortly afterwards, the man walks into The Village, a community where everyone goes by numbers instead of names and believes that there is nothing else, but the Village.

The leader of the community, Two, is less help than anyone else. The original PRISONER was wilfully obscure at times, always surreal and determined to play games that would turn the simplest of stories into a challenge for its audience. It is the ultimate cult TV show and remains one of the most discussed science fiction series of all time. Possibly the only thing that was clear about it was the set up. We knew that Number Six was a spy who tried to retire and was brought to the Village to give up his secrets. The new version of the show is much less clear about its set up. Six has memories of another place and time, as did 93, but nobody else seems to believe that there is anything outside The Village. There are children here also, who cannot be in on any conspiracy and so the nature of the Village is very much more obscure, at least for the present. Six resigned, though from where we don't know, and seems more interested in his memories of a girl that he tried to date rather than finding out the nature of the place he has arrived in. The inclusion of 147 and his wife's home life also diffuse the focus away from Six a little bit, something that the original never did.

The acting is perfectly fine, but the characters are ill-defined. Six has amnesia, so that's explainable, but Two simply speaks in riddles and is not very threatening at all. The introduction of what appears to be a son and a sick wife to the Village's leader as a way of humanising him further dilutes the focus. The flashbacks and the intrusion of sudden bursts of CCTV footage go further to muddy the waters, but not in a good way. This is the opening episode and so we have to allow some leeway, and there are interesting things going on that are promising, but the storytelling will have to improve in future episodes. Top Harmony Six is rescued from the desert by his brother, or a man claiming to be his brother anyway. He takes up his job as a bus driver for the Village Tour and even earns a holiday at the Escape resort for his new 'family', but as he unravels, Six learns that family might not be everything. There are so many good things hidden away in this episode that it's a shame to report what an utter mess it is. The use of family and Six's need to belong is a good start.

Ian McKellen's Two is a bit sinister under all the campness, there is interesting symbolism in the anchor and the psychotherapy sessions are very much in the spirit of the original show. Unfortunately, all of this is muddled and jumbled up by direction that seems more intent of creating confusion than anything else. Scenes jump from place to place and characters flit into and out of the story with no real point or purpose. The seaside appears and then disappears, as does Six's brother, not that the family care very much.The mishmash of styles and jagged cutting create disorientation and not in the good way that the original show managed. Six's history is revealed in flashback. He was a worker for a company processing CCTV camera footage from all across the world, looking for patterns, to find out what's happening. He apparently found out more than some people were comfortable with. This is about the only comprehensible thing that the episode manages to say. And then there's the Rover, the balloon-like guardian of the Village. It's appearance last week was so fleeting and mishandled that it looked more like a 'what happens next week' segment. It reappears again here and again a major moment is completely fluffed.

This show is looking like it is becoming a prisoner of its own style over substance approach. Top Anvil Two pairs up Six with 909 in an undercover role to unearth the inhabitants of the Village who are dreaming of another life. His first suspect takes drastic action, but Six learns that 909 has been having an affair with Two's son and Two is keeping his own secrets. The deliberately vague and unsatisfying storytelling isn't necessary to making the elements of this story come together and instead tears them apart and leaves the audience wondering what was real, what was a dream and is it worth the effort findign out? The events of last week have been completely forgotten and Six finds himself in a part of the Village that has bikers and strip clubs and generally undesirable elements. Where do the bikers get all the petrol for their bikes anyway? The central story of Six being sucked into 909's paranoid world and the discovery of his link to Two's son is an intriguing one that wouldn't have been out of place in the original series , but it all gets lost in a welter of imagery that adds up to not a lot, undercutting the effect of what has gone before.

In its desire to be as obscure as its predecessor and just being opaque, the show is proving how hard the effect of the original was to achieve. Top Darling Six is forced into being considered by the local dating agency. The woman that they choose for him is the same woman that he dreams about in his alternative life in New York, the one who was asking questions about why he retired. Intrigued, he strikes up a relationship with the woman, who in the village is blind. This makes him the target of two women. Now this is much more like it. The central storyline is strong and the shading, doubts and obliqueness all come from the storytelling rather than deliberately confusing editing and florid camerawork. The relationship with the dating agency girl casts down on the reality of Six's dreams of New York and might just possibly be part of a bigger plan to get him to confide in his doctor friend, who now realises that she loves him. The sidebar story about a mysterious hole that has opened up in 147's yard and swallows up his daughter doesn't seem to be going anywhere, but does add to the nightmarish quality of the whole thing. This is easily the best episode yet by a long way.

Top Schizoid Six discovers that there is a man in the Village who looks exactly like him and who is out to kill Two. Two goes undercover amongst the ordinary people whilst his son learns the truth about his mother's drug-induced coma. The sloppy storytelling and deliberately opaque symbolism continues to annoy here as the truth about Six and the connection of his old surveillance company and the Village are revealed, sort of. The apparently important holes in the ground are completely forgotten, as is the woman that Six nearly married. Six himself even manages to play second fiddle to the story of Two's son having a chat with his mother about why she allows herself to be kept in a pill-induced coma. There is then suddenly a trip to the towers in the desert, a trip that ought to have been blocked by the Rover, but which isn't. All the obliqueness in the world is fine if the internal logic of a piece is consistent. Sadly, this isn't. Top Checkmate Six is summoned to the clinic when he comes over all feverish. In sessions with Two, he comes to understand the purpose of the Village.

This final episode of the rebooted series is as all over the place as the others have been, using edit cuts and directorial tricks to obscure the story with the aim of appearing more mysterious. It has two tricks up its sleeves the others didn't have, though. The first is the meaning of the Village; what it is and what is it's purpose. The second is a twist to end the series that would have had great impact had the show been able to make the character of Six more rebellious and determined than just plain confused. All of this plays out in a reasonably satisfying fashion, but because by this point the audience really doesn't care very much it ultimately fails in its aims. The Prisoner, Five Daughters, and Survival with Ray Mears | Television & radio | The Guardian The Prisoner, Five Daughters, and Survival with Ray Mears The Prisoner has moved to the desert, but it's as tense and claustrophobic as ever This doesn't look like Wales: James Caviezel in The Prisoner.

Photograph: The Guardian Saturday 24 April 2010 19.00 EDT First published on Saturday 24 April 2010 19.00 EDT Share on Messenger Close What would it be like to have a psychotic disorder that made you delusional? Maybe it would be like being this man called Six, played by James Caviezel, who finds himself captive in The Village, a sunny place with identical brightly coloured houses, happy music and smiley people, all surrounded by desert. He remembers his previous existence though, of being not a number but a free man. And The Village isn't as smiley as it first seems. It runs on fear, spying, indoctrination and mind control. Identity is stolen, individualism lost to the common cause. Six is . . . The Prisoner (ITV, Saturday). Resurrecting TV shows from a long time ago isn't often a good idea; it usually ends in tears. But this remake of the groundbreaking 60s series is a triumph, with something of The Truman Show about it, but even darker.

Proper Prisoner-heads will probably be tearing their now-greying beards out in anger at some disloyalty to the original. Who cares? Things have changed. The show looks fantastic: the move from Portmeirion in Wales to the deserts of Namibia and South Africa is a great success. Ian McKellen's Two, the white-suited old man who runs The Village, is a splendid villain: outwardly twinkly and benevolent, but with a sinister steeliness beneath. The villagers may smile when he boards the bus to greet them, but you can see the fear they're feeling inside. The therapist at the clinic is clearly terrified when Two wants his own head looked inside, to see what makes Two tick. If you knew what made Two tick, you'd probably know The Village's dark secret. Best to just smile and go along with it. Except for Six, who wants out of there. What I'm not sure about is the white blob that bounces about and stops the prisoners escaping – it was called Rover in the original. A giant frog spawn possibly doesn't have the same menace it had 40 years ago.

But this new show still has a tension and a claustrophobia that gnaw away at you, making you look into your own psyche. Do you remember somewhere else, somewhere real? Is someone watching you? Are we all just prisoners here? Of our own device? Five Daughters (BBC1, Sunday), which continues tonight and concludes tomorrow, was the drama highlight of the weekend, though highlight doesn't sound quite right for something so harrowing. It's a tricky one, the dramatisation of a recent and familiar news event. The Canoe Man the other day wasn't very successful: it just told a story most of us knew already. We know this much sadder story too, the murder in the winter of 2006 of five young women in Ipswich and the subsequent investigation. Who can forget it? But Stephen Butchard's drama, based on the testimonials of people closely involved in the case, does add a lot. It brings it alive, humanises it. Anneli Alderton is now not just a grainy CCTV picture of a woman with tied-back dyed blonde hair on a train; she's a person who had a story, a future, a family, a mother.

There are some remarkable performances – Jaime Winstone as Alderton and Martin Compston as Gemma Adams's junkie boyfriend Jon stand out. It is a portrait of addiction, too, and of prostitution and a police force out of its depth. But most of all, it's a human tragedy, which is why it's so profoundly moving. I hope the families of Anneli Alderton, Gemma Adams, Tania Nicol, Paula Clennell and Annette Nicholls feel the same. In Survival with Ray Mears (ITV, Sunday), the good-natured man of the earth is in British Columbia searching for bears. Tracking himself in other words, because Ray is basically a big cuddly bear. He's better in a colder climate too, because he doesn't wear those too-tight safari-style shorts. We've seen bears fishing for salmon in Canada 1,000 times, but I don't mind seeing them again with Ray because when he's having such a good time it's hard not to have a good time with him. There's an honesty about his shows. In this one, he's looking for a special bear, a white "spirit" bear.

They find a bear hair (just one, not a bunch, sadly), and it's all gearing up for them meeting their spirit bear on the last day. But guess what? They don't. Ray goes home having failed, miserably. It's gutting for him, obviously, but there's something quite nice about it. The Prisoner | Television & radio | The Guardian Television & radio Jim Caviezel and Ian McKellen star in ITV's reinvention of the 1960s cult thriller, The Prisoner • The Prisoner begins on Saturday April 17 at 9.30pm on ITV1 Thursday 15 April 2010 11.41 EDT Jim Caviezel, who plays New Yorker Michael in ITV's remake of The Prisoner, awakes to see Ian McKellen, the charismatic Two …Photograph: ITV

Question: Who plays '2' in the 2010 ITV series 'The Prisoner'?
Answer: SIR IAN McKELLEN