More Village!

  In the original series of ‘the Prisoner’ and more precisely in the episode ‘A B and C,’ No.6 places an earring given to him by a woman at Engadine’s party. This he places on the number six on the roulette table. The number six comes up, and the Prisoner is given a key by the roulette croupier. In THEPRISONER this scene is reinterpreted by Two giving his son a key to his safe during the episode Schizoid, as pictured here.

    What's more there is another, but much stronger similarity between the two series, and that's the Shopkeeper. Oh, nothing to do with the Shopkeeper-No.19, or is it fifty-six, as played by Denis Shaw in 'Arrival,' and 'Checkmate,' but the shopkeeper No.112 in 'Hammer Into Anvil' played by Victor Woolf. He watches No.6 listen to the Davier recordings of Bizet's I'arlesienne. Then seeing the question marked word 'Security' on the front page of The Tally Ho, immediately telephones No.2 as soon as No.6 leaves the General Store. And that's the same after No.6 buys that Cuckoo clock! Well it's much the same way with this shopkeeper-37927 in THEPRIS6NER played by David Butler.

    As soon as Six, having enquired about a receipt for a knife, leaves the Village Shop, 37927 is on the telephone to report to Two. And the same can be said after 37927 has shared an illicit cigarette with who he thinks is un-Two. He's again on the telephone reporting to Two, as soon as the Un-Two has left the Village Shop. And that's another thing, the number 37927, that's one hell of a number for a citizen of the Village. Even if this was the very last number in the Village, 37927 being representative of the number of the populace in the Village, that number alone must surely turn the Village into the size of a City!

Be seeing you