The Prisoner Given A Thorough Dusting Down!

    There was a mixed response to the Prisoner at the time, television viewers thought it was either the “thinking man’s” television, or that it was the biggest load of television rubbish ever created. It was also  said to be the most disappointing and ridiculous television series. Perhaps because people didn’t attempt to understand, mind you they wanted to be given the answers, and yet they didn’t always believe them. Not even when they were told the reason behind the Prisoner’s resignation, it didn’t seem enough somehow, there simply had to be more to it. We were told that all the answers would be found in Fall Out, but they must have changed their minds. Whilst others saw the answers in the conclusion to the Prisoner! People wanted to know what the Penny Farthing with the candy-striped canopy was all about. But then that’s adults for you. Children on the other hand, and I was amongst their number, were attracted to the Prisoner and continued to be attracted to the series over the years and decades ever since. And I have always been of the opinion that the Prisoner is best viewed through the eyes of a child, because children do not expect to understand every detail, that they merely follow the story. Whereas as adults we break the Prisoner down in wanting to find the answers, the reasons, why and wherefores of the series. And perhaps as adults we are guilty of over thinking the Prisoner, making it more complicated than it should be. I know that Tony Sloman {film Librarian for the Prisoner} has made the suggestion that we think about the series far too much. And yet had I not spent 5 years asking questions of, thinking about, and researching the Prisoner for my book The Prisoner Dusted Down I would never have found fascinating new details about the series and what we see on the screen. Who would have thought the inspiration for the trial of Fall Out would have come from a childhood experience, but then childishness does run throughout the Prisoner. And then there’s Colonel Hawke Englishe, what a surprise he turned out to be, his character based on……well perhaps its best not to say, because you who are reading this may have not read my book as yet. And what about Number 6 himself, well that would be Patrick McGoohan of course. There has been, in the past, and now recently, books published which have been proclaimed as being “biographies” about Patrick McGoohan but which are basically nothing more than “film and television biographies!” However The Prisoner Dusted Down does actually contain a biographical piece delving into, and revealing revelations about Patrick McGoohan’s childhood, and much more besides. So it pays to delve beneath the surface, who knows what treasures you may find now that the Prisoner has been thorough Dusted Down!

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