DVD/150: CODENAME: KYRIL (Ian Sharp, 1988, tv)

It's taken 32 years but I've finally seen CODENAME: KYRIL which, as a sub-Le Carré espionage drama, isn't my usual thing but it starred Ian Charleson in one of his last filmed performances so I had to see it.

It's not TINKER TAILOR SOLDIER SPY but it is very watchable with a plot full of twists.

The head of the KGB discovers there is a traitor who has been leaking secret material to MI6 for years.  He pursuades one of his most trusted operatives Ivan Bucharensky, - codename Kyril - to seemingly defect to the West and announces it is because Kyril knows the mole's identity.

But Kyril faces double danger: the Russian traitor sends an assassin to London to kill him - although Kyril has no idea who the traitor is - and Royston, the head MI6 officer assigned to catch him, is himself a double-agent who also wants Kyril silenced.

Shelf or charity shop?  One to keep for Ian who gives a charismatic performance and an excellent cast including Edward Woodward as his MI6 nemesis, Joss Ackland, Peter Vaughan, Denholm Elliott, Richard E Grant, John McEnery, Peter Wight and Hugh Fraser in an involving script by John Hopkins.  It also has the added bonus of being shot on location in late-1980s London so great to spot how certain locations have changed.

What an actor we lost...