Prismatic Reflection

    Escape is all very well, but first it all depends on what you are trying to escape from, and secondly where you are attempting to escape to! Take the Prisoner for example, I would use his name, except no-one can be absolutely sure what his name is. I could call him Mister X, although that’s been done already. He once used the name Peter Smith, although personally I think that an alias. Perhaps it might be better to use one of his code names, ZM73 perhaps. But personally I like D6.
    So where are we now? Oh yes, D6 for reasons of his own, decides to chuck up his job, after which he’s decided to go away on a little holiday, in all probability to France and the city of Paris. What would he do there? Visit his old friend Engadine perhaps. But even then Paris France is but a stopping off place, because the two travel brochures D6 packs in one of his suitcases indicates he is off to sunnier climes. Somewhere different, somewhere quiet, where he can think. And what then? What does the future hold for an ex-secret agent? I’m talking about Patrick McGoohan here, because it was he who had resigned, it was he who had strived to escape the household name of John Drake. But then John Drake had been good to McGoohan, ‘Danger Man’ had made McGoohan a household name, the best paid actor on British television at the time if memory serves. However I suppose there comes a point when it’s time to go, to go and do something else. Something different, something ground breaking, that will be a message from him, but for us, ‘the Prisoner’ is that message, interpret it how we may.
I know a number of fans of ‘the Prisoner’ who are awaiting the 50^th anniversary of the series. They may be expecting the same style celebrations as Doctor Who received, I believe they will be disappointed. In truth there are few people still alive who worked on ’the Prisoner’ series, a series which was never as big as Doctor Who. Do you know what I found to be the most astonishing thing about the Doctor Who docu-drama about the origins of Doctor Who. The fact that they found an actor who could physically replace the original Doctor Who, that of William Hartnel. His name David Bradley.  For me William Hartnel was the best of all the doctors, that is because I grew up with him as a boy. And they say that everyone’s favourite Doctor Who is the one they grew up with, that is why many, many fans say that Patrick McGoohan could never be replaced as Number 6. And yet, in my own humble way, I did just that. I replaced Patrick McGoohan as No.6, for a time at least, portraying No.6 at Prisoner Conventions. I still remember those days, and look back upon them with a sense of well being. They were fun days, to follow in Patrick McGoohan’s footsteps for one weekend each year. And would I ever go back? That eventuality I have to say would never occur, but if it did, I’d probably attend a Prisoner Convention as the old man 93 from THEPRIS6NER-09 series, having just returned from the “other place,” that of the Village! Escape you see, is not always possible, because you invariably end up back where you started. But sometimes for the lucky ones, there is a second chance to be able to live a life as free as one can possibly be. At least to be ones own boss. Free to make ones own mistakes, to be the boss, to be Number 1!

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