The Therapy Zone

Number 2

Number 2 is portrayed as being very English even when played by Australian actors Guy Doleman and Leo McKern. However they did get it right with’ Living In Harmony’ with American born actor David Bauer as the Judge/No.2.
If there is one thing which stands out in ‘the Prisoner’ it's very Englishness. It is thought that the Prisoner-Number 6 is English. But he isn't. Not having been played by Irish-American born Patrick McGoohan. The village maybe an International community, yet in this cosmopolitan village it is it's very Englishness which make you think that the installation known as the village is actually run by the British. But if that it the case, why should the village be thought to be behind the Iron Curtain in the episode ‘The Chimes of Big Ben?’ Well simply going by the information given by Nadia, which if true, makes both the Colonel and Fotheringay as having gone over to the other side. But of course the village is nowhere near the Iron Curtain, let alone behind it. Those 25 days the Prisoner spent at sea, on a north-easterly course, during the episode ‘Many Happy Returns’ goes to prove that much.
    As Prisoner production manager Bernard Williams once said "Perhaps it would have been better if we'd used other, non-English actors as Number Two." Well that would certainly have added to the cosmopolitan atmosphere of the village.

Said About The Prisoner

George Baker said to describe the Prisoner as: "Like Kafka" as "reality keeps slipping away. It's very frightening. It could be happening to someone in this country now that we don't know about.... that's what is so fascinating about the Prisoner.

Terence Feely {script writer} sums up the series best of all: "What the series is all about is creative people for once running the asylum." "We were doing what we wanted and showing what the medium was capable of, showing what a marvellous tool surrealism is for surrealistic expression. That last episode is, I think one of the best examples of total surrealism. No prisoners taken. This is a series built to last."

    Well Terence Feely got that one right, the series has indeed lasted. And as for "It could be happening to someone in this country" well just be grateful that it's not happening to you!

A Question Of Interpretation

   At her art seminar Madam Professor describes a man sat tearing up a book as "Creating a fresh concept. Construction comes out of the ashes of destruction." And then there's a woman standing on her head "She's developing a new perspective." And the man's asleep in the chair simply because "The mind learns only when it wants to."

  Well to me the man's simply tearing up a book, the woman's standing on her head, and the man's asleep in the chair simply because he's tired!

   Well I think this is a case of madam Professor seeing one thing, where I see something else, much like ‘the Prisoner,’ its all to do with interpretation.

I'll be seeing you