Spies of Warsaw is a British television miniseries in which a Deuxième Bureau intelligence agent (spy) poses as a military attaché at the French embassy in Warsaw, and finds himself drawn into the outbreak of World War II.[1]
Spies of Warsaw | |
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Genre | Historical fiction |
Written by | Dick Clement Alan Furst Ian La Frenais |
Directed by |
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Starring | |
Composer | Rob Lane |
Country of origin | United Kingdom |
Original language | English |
No. of series | 1 |
No. of episodes | 4 (list of episodes) |
Production | |
Executive producer | Richard Fell
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Production locations | Kraków, Warsaw |
Cinematography | Wojciech Szepel |
Running time | 180 minutes total |
Production companies |
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Original release | |
Network | BBC Four |
Release | 9 January 16 January 2013 | –
The television series takes its name from its source, The Spies of Warsaw, a 2008 spy novel by Alan Furst. The book was adapted for television in 2013 as a co-production of TVP1, BBC Four, BBC America, and ARTE and premiered in January in the United Kingdom and in April in the United States.[2] It starred David Tennant as the protagonist Colonel Jean-François Mercier and Janet Montgomery as his love interest Anna Skarbek.[3] As in other Alan Furst novels, the fictional Parisian restaurant Brasserie Heininger serves as one of the settings for dialogue.[4]
Main cast includes:[1]
Support cast includes:[1]
There are four episodes, which have also aired as a two-part series.[5]
The two-part drama received some positive reviews in the UK, especially for the script and acting,[6] although The Guardian described it as "pallid as much of the washed-out photography".[7]
The Telegraph liked the series for many features: appropriateness for "intergenerational shared viewing, never... too visually brutal, and the playing of the minor characters... was convincingly understated".[8] The Guardian complained: "It should have been the perfect spy thriller. It had everything. Except tension".[9]
The New York Times found the series an "enjoyable, straightforward espionage tale without a lot of twists or extra layers" but deemed it "true to the original in story and in spirit",[5] though slow-moving,[10] and the Boston Globe thought it "a strangely bloodless affair".[11]
Rotten Tomatoes rated the television series 64% from critics and 50% from average audience.[12]