An Englishman Abroad **** (1983, Alan Bates, Coral Browne, Charles Gray) – Classic Movie Review 9269

Alan Bennett’s sharply witty screenplay for An Englishman Abroad (1983) is taken from the actress Coral Browne’s anecdote about how she met notorious spy traitor Guy Burgess in an Old Vic theatre exchange tour of Hamlet to Moscow in 1958.

Director John Schlesinger’s 1983 TV film An Englishman Abroad is funny, touching and sad, and much too lenient on Burgess.

Alan Bates is superb as Burgess, all stains and creepy charm, and Browne is remarkable playing the difficult role of her 25-year younger self.

It won seven BAFTA TV Awards, including Best Single Drama, Best Actor and Best Actress.

Glasgow and Dundee in Scotland stand in worryingly well as Moscow locations.

It was later part of a theatre double bill in Single Spies, the second half of which, A Question of Attribution, was later filmed by Schlesinger in 1991.

Also in the cast are Charles Gray, Harold Innocent, Vernon Dobtcheff, Mark Wing-Davey, Douglas Reith, Peter Chelsom, Roger Hammond, Matthew Sim, Judy Gridley, Trevor Baxter, Alexei Jawdokimov, Denys Hawthorne Molly Veness and Czeslaw Grocholski.

An Englishman Abroad is directed by John Schlesinger, runs 63 minutes, is made and released by BBC, is written by Alan Bennett, is shot by Nat Crosby, is produced by Innes Lloyd and is scored by George Fenton.

© Derek Winnert 2019 Classic Movie Review 9269

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