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The TV series really were perfection and not just down to Sir Alec Guinness. Ian Richardson, Bernard Hepton, Michael Jayston etc were all wonderful - not to men
by klelatti 6y ago
The TV series really were perfection and not just down to Sir Alec Guinness. Ian Richardson, Bernard Hepton, Michael Jayston etc were all wonderful - not to mention Arthur Hopcraft's adaptation. The opening scene with four men, an office, no action and four words of dialogue, yet a world of detail sets the tone for the rest of the series [1]
Recently re-reading TTSS with Alec Guinness's Smiley in my imagination was a wonderful experience. Thank you John Le Carre.
PS One oddity is that in TTSS Toby Esterhase has a British accent but in SP he's acquired a broad Hungarian one!
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ShPPjxlmp4U https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ShPPjxlmp4U
- jack_riminton 6y agoI often wondered if this was on purpose. He was known for affecting a very English Gent persona and by SP he was openly living as a fraudulent art dealer after leaving the Circus under a cloud
- klelatti 6y agoThat sounds like a possibility. On reflection the accent in TTSS - with no trace of his original accent - is the oddity. But then I guess he was a spy so would be good at that sort of thing!
- sn41 6y agoToby Esterhazy does mention that he tried his hand at playing the English gentleman, and was quite done with it. I would like to have known some more background of Toby. Especially, how Hungarians came to Britain in the mid 20th century. Not quite totally unrelated is the Monty Python sketch on the Dirty Hungarian Phrasebook, which also alludes to the wave of Hungarian migrants: http://www.montypython.net/scripts/phrasebk.php http://www.montypython.net/scripts/phrasebk.php
- klelatti 6y agoI have some anecdotal experience here - my supervisor at College in Britain in the 1980s was a Hungarian mathematician who left Hungary in the late 1960s having had difficulties with the authorities. He vowed never to return to Hungary and had fairly trenchant views on the regime! Incidentally, my supervision partner was also Hungarian and has now returned and is running a bank in Budapest.
- jhbadger 6y agoIn the novel of TTSS, it is explained that Toby was a starving (literally rather than figuratively) student living in Vienna after WWII and Smiley recruited him there to the Circus (MI6).
- pea 6y agoHis last name was also pronounced totally differently.. Esterhaus.. I never understand why!
- tempodox 6y agoHere's how the name is pronounced in the native Hungarian: https://forvo.com/word/esterházy/ https://forvo.com/word/esterházy/ I'd consider anything else a creative approximation.