Who would you cast in the planned new Game, Set and Match triple trilogy?

Who will replace this man?

Something for you to think about over Christmas, everyone...

Earlier this year I revealed that Len had signed a development deal with Clerkenwell Films to create an 18-part TV series based on all nine books in the 'Samson series' of novels by Len Deighton, which follow the fortunes of desk-bound spy Bernard Samson and his search to uncover the deeper truth about his wife's staged defection to East Germany in the early 1980s.

I've started re-reading the last three novels again and over the Christmas break I thought I'd break out the (bootleg) DVD of the original Granada TV adaption from 1988 of the original Game, Set and Match, of which Len's admitted he wasn't satisfied about some of the casting, hence it's non-repeating on TV. This got me thinking - who are the contemporay actors and actresses who'd make the best choices for the main roles. And I'd like blog readers to share their views too. Who knows? Clerkenwell's producers might read the post....

Primary roles in all nine 'Game, Set & Match' novels

• Bernard Samson
• Fiona Samson
• Bret Renselaer
• Werner Volkmann
• Zena Volkmann
• Dicky Cruyer
• Sir Henry Clevemore
• Silas Gaunt
• Erich Stinnes
• Pavel Moskvin
• George Kosinski
• Tessa Kosinski
• Lisl Hennig

My initial suggestions for actors to play these roles

• Bernard Samson - Damian Lewis or David Morrisey
• Fiona Samson - Gillian Anderson or Keeley Hawkes
• Bret Renselaer - Ted Danson
• Werner Volkmann - Sebastian Koch
• Zena Volkman - Franka Potente
• Dicky Cruyer - Dominic West
• Sir Henry Clevemore - Tom Wilkinson
• Silas Gaunt - Michael Gambon
• Erich Stinnes - Daniel Bruhl
• Pavel Moskvin - Philip Glenister or Jurgen Prochnow
• George Kosinski - Ray Winstone or Mark Strong
• Tessa Kosinski - Lena Headey or Sarah Alexander
• Lisl Hennig - Marita Breur

Copy the top list of bullet points, and paste them in your comments below with your suggestion. Be creative!!

Spooked?

I draw readers' attention to an article in today's FT newspaper by TV producer John Lloyd about the continuing appeal of the BBC One 'spy' show Spooks. I watched the first few series with Matthew Macfadyen, but I'll admit to having not watched the last few series. It's sometimes hyped as a British '24', and does adopt the same fast paced, multi-perspective presentation.

With the show coming back for an eighth season, this article is an interesting look back at how the show has developed since its inception in the post 11 September world we now inhabit. Lloyd's contention is that Spooks - with its fast pace, technology to the fore, action, strong female characters, at times soap opera-ish personal sub stories - was very much a spy fiction of its time: "When Spooks first aired in May 2002, it was regarded as a child of 9/11, just as John Buchan’s spies were children of the early 20th-century German threat, or Len Deighton’s and John le Carré’s of the cold war."

It has attracted its share of knockers. Some critics have complained that, with episodes about Mossad agents, anti-abortionists and vivisectionist terror threat it's often ignored the terrorist elephant in the room - the modern Islamo-fascist threat in the UK evidenced on 7 July. Then again, others have praised its focus on the relationships between the agents and the impact that secrecy has on individuals' capacities to relate to each other and leave behind the shadowy world in which they operate when they close the front door. It's also seen as bringing the spy story up to speed for a new generation hooked on Facebook, not Funeral in Berlin; Twittering instead of reading.

Very interested article, which portrays well a show which is of the post-ideological world where threat is as much emotional and non-rational as it is political and tied to any particular state structure. The agents in Spooks combat a chaotic threat in a chaotic world.

Deighton returns to the airwaves...and the bookshelves

The 80th birthday of thriller writer Len Deighton is to be commemorated in a radio programme to be broadcast on Radio 4 on 26 May, I've just learned via the BookBrunch website. The programme is to be written and presented by Patrick Humphries. This good news for fans follows on from the news earlier in February that there is also to be a worldwide re-issue programme of Deighton's novels.

The notoriously reclusive Deighton, who turned 80 last month, talked to Humphries for two hours about his life, and a writing career stretching back to 1962 and the publication of The Ipcress File, which changed the face of spy fiction and went on to make a successful transfer to the big screen - the first and arguably best of Michael Caine's Harry Palmer outings. Contributors to the programme include food writer Henrietta Green, talking about Deighton’s Action Cook Book, which Fourth Estate will reissue in May with a new introduction, and historian Sir Max Hastings, who speaks about Deighton’s non-fiction work, such as Fighter and Blitzkrieg.

The story also suggests a TV remake of the Game, Set and Match Trilogy (not just a reissuing of the 1988 ITV series, which Deighton disliked) and a new book, The Anatomy of a Fountain Pen, which will be of a limited print run. The latter is interesting news, but all I have at the moment is an intriguing title.

More exciting, though, is the great news about Game Set and Match; it will be interesting to hear how the two compare, and also how the producers recreate cold war Berlin now that most of the wall has gone! Another factor will be the budget; will it allow for sufficient locations and CGI to recreate cold war Berlin. The timing is propitious, with November being the 20th anniversary of the fall of 'die Mauer'.

Of course, keep linking to this blog as more news arises.