The Prisoner

    What does it mean? It means what it is as Number 6 was once heard to say. He was of course speaking about a piece of abstract art which he had sculptured together, three pieces in all. One of the award judges said they didn’t know what it meant, and of course Number 6 said it means what it is, and Number 2 thought that was marvellous, which of course it is. But did that piece of abstract art mean the interpretation Number 6 placed upon it. Number 6 is a very clever man, well no he isn’t really because Number 6 is but a character in a television series. It’s Patrick McGoohan who was the clever man, and it was he who was putting the words of the scriptwriter Vincent Tilsley into Number 6’s mouth.
    To my mind Number 6 was talking off the cuff so to speak, making it up about the piece of abstract art as he went along, and made it sound very plausible. ’The Prisoner’ is rather like a piece of abstract art, it can mean so many different things to so many different people who look at the series in so many different ways. Just because the Number 6 as the artist says a piece of abstract art means such and such, doesn’t make him right. And the same goes with ‘the Prisoner.’ I was once asked if I could have met and asked Patrick McGoohan one question, what would it be? I said at the time that I had no desire to meet the man, not did I have a question to ask him. Now I wonder if like the meaning of Number 6’s abstract art, was McGoohan, at the time, simply making it up as he went along? But then Patrick McGoohan didn’t create the series all on his own, he had help from scriptwriters, the Script editor George Markstein, and the director and writer David Tombiln. And there are one or two points I would argue with him against. There are also some points I would have put to him which he may not have even considered. But that’s all much too late now, so no point on dwelling on that.
    I sometimes wonder, when I write my articles on ‘the Prisoner’ that at times I go too deep with my interpretations, in getting carried away. I once wrote an article for Number Six magazine, saying that at times people over complicate ‘the Prisoner,’ and that there are times when a simple answer will do. I also wonder why it is I am dissatisfied with ‘the Prisoner?’ I must be dissatisfied, otherwise I would say enough, I’ve all the answers to my own satisfaction about ‘the Prisoner,’ there’s nothing left. It’s been 48 years, enough should be enough. And yet it isn’t, it’s impossible to leave the piece of abstract art alone. It must be defined, and each time I try, I find there’s another angle to come at it. And I’m not the only one, many of my contemporaries have found it to be so. Even Number 2 of “Chimes” had trouble with the Prisoner, he had to take it all back to the beginning, so he made in his report. “File Number Six section forty-two, subsection one, paragraph one, back to the beginning.” It reads as though ‘the Prisoner’ has been re-set, back to the beginning. Because Number 2 is no further forward with Number 6 at the end than he is at the beginning! 

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