The Therapy Zone

    ‘The Prisoner’ is more than simply a television series, because it contains archive film footage of Portmeirion as it used to be. Of Dover harbour and the ferry the ‘Maid of Kent.’

 The lighthouse at Beachy Head was further from the cliffs at the time of filming. Cliff erosion in recent years has brought the lighthouse close to the mainland. And it was due to a piece of cliff erosion that enabled Number 6 to scramble up the chalk cliff. Because if it had not been for that piece of erosion he would have had a very long walk along that shingle beach! And no, I do not subscribe to any idea that it was the power behind The Village who arranged that cliff erosion, but that it was a natural occurrence.
    And then there is the film footage of the back-lot sets at MGM which appear in episodes of ‘the Prisoner,’ back-lots which have long since gone. But at the time were used in ‘The Chimes of Big Ben,’ ‘A B and C,’ ‘The Schizoid Man,’ ‘Living In Harmony,’ and ‘The Girl Who Was Death.’
    There is the film footage of the Thatched Barn seen in ‘The Girl Who Was Death,’ but which has long since gone these many years past. Along with the area around Boreham wood. Of the Kursaal funfair at Southend-on-Sea. And the motorway, the M1 used as the A20, where is all the traffic? Motoring back in the 1960’s must have been a joy when faced with the open road, instead of the traffic filled roads of today.
    It has been said that ‘the Prisoner’ is ahead of its time, well that may be true while in The Village.’ But out of The Village ‘the Prisoner’ is most definitely of its time, firmly set in the 1960’s!

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