The Night Manager

[Tyrion Cheddar]

Stayed up most of last night watching this new miniseries production of John Le Carre's The Night Manager, with Hugh Laurie and Tom Hiddleston. It's really good, highly recommended. Those with keen eyes, watching for the cameo by the author himself. ;-)

[Helga]

I did not know John Le Carré had a cameo in it.... when?

I loved the series, Hugh Laurie is a very good evil businessman. Olivia Colman is such a great actress and Hiddleston was great as usual. I thought it was very well made, I haven't read the book though, so I can't make a comparison. More novels by Carré should be adapted for television.

The end was fantastic and rough.

I think Tom Hollander was really really good and his character was brilliant.

[Tyrion Cheddar]

I did not know John Le Carré had a cameo in it.... when?

I loved the series, Hugh Laurie is a very good evil businessman. Olivia Colman is such a great actress and Hiddleston was great as usual. I thought it was very well made, I haven't read the book though, so I can't make a comparison. More novels by Carré should be adapted for television.

The end was fantastic and rough.

I think Tom Hollander was really really good and his character was brilliant.

Yes, I agree. I've seen him in a few things now, and think he's quite fine. I've only seen him play a sour, miserable little bastard though. ;-) Le Carre's cameo came in the scene in the restaurant when Tom Hollander made a big scene about there not being any lobster salad left for that eight foot blonde woman. When Tom Hiddleston got up to apologize to the people at the next table, that elderly white-haired man whose hand he shook was John Le Carre.
The other most famous TV adaptation of one of his novels was of course Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, with Alec Guinness, one of the finest dramatic productions for television to this day. They also made the sequel, Smiley's People, again starring Guinness. If you didn't catch the film version that came out a few years ago, starring Gary Oldman, it's well worth seeing, but if you've not seen the old mini series with Alec Guinness, I would watch that first.

[milagros]

Hello:

For the moment, I have only watched the first and second chapter and I think this serie it great.
the actors are very good in their characters. I am enchanted with Tom Hinddeston and Hugh Laurie, they are great actors.
I remember the scene in the which Tom Hollander made a huge scandal in the restarurant but I never imagined that writer John Le Carre appears in it. This night I'll watch carefully the scene.

¿Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy? I didn't know about its existence. Does anybody know where I can watch it online?

Good bye

[Pompey Bum]

I read it when it came out back on the 90s (I think) and I thought it was pretty good for what it was. The villain seemed a bit James-Bond-bad-guy-ish to me at the time. By that I mean he as an international rogue doing his own thing without a government, whereas David Cornwall/John Le Carre had usually created more subtle (and political) villains before. At the time, I wondered how realistic that kind of a villian was. Then Ossama bin Ladan came along a few years later and I remember thinking maybe John Le Carre had been ahead of the game after all. Also, I liked the scene where they're water boarding the good guy with Coke and he's having religious hallucinations/visions telling him to hang on. The whole idea of betraying a group from within was interesting, too. It was a good book.

For the record, the sequel to Tinker, Taylor, Soldier, Spy was the just-as-good The Honorable a Schoolboy. Smiley's Ppeople (okay but not as good as the first two) was the third, and more of a sequel to the first two; it takes place a little later and describes the endgame between Smiley and Karla. There were also two really early Smiley books--one a spy novel and one more of a conventional mystery--and then the classic The Spy Who Came In From the Cold, in which George Smiley has a tiny but significant role. Oh, and there was a final Smiley book that was mostly a vehicle for short stories--but also a kind of epilogue. And plenty of non-Smiley books, too. If you liked The Night Manager, you should check them out.