Gloriously bonkers.
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Harry’s Game
This drama was first shown in 1982 at the height of the troubles & is the story of an undercover British agent put into the Falls Rd district to seek out & kill an IRA assassin who’d just been to London & murdered an MP.
Although vistas of Belfast are often shown the actual street scenes were filmed in grim looking parts of Leeds. I doubt it would have been possible to film such a programme in Belfast at that time.
It’s gritty & surprisingly shows the brutality meted out by both sides of the conflict. Also a reminder of how rough, grey & spartan many places were in the late 70’s & early 80’s.
Also, many people’s first experience of Clannad with the theme from Harry’s game floating over the closing credits of each episode.
It was as good as I remembered it being first time around.
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Where did you see that please?
Meanwhile, Edge of Darkness is on iPlayer lads.
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downloaded a torrent but you can get it on DVD
It was prompted by watching the C4 drama Trespasses which was also very good but a reminder of what a mess NI was in the 70’s/80’s.
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Thank you. I have the DVD.
I just wondered if it was available at better resolution elsewhere.
As I think I said recently, anything about NI is kind of compulsory in this household.
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No, the quality of my download was pretty ropey!
It almost wants to be re-made but they’d really struggle to make the 70s/80s look authentic. I’m sure the film stock is a big part of it.
Not sure if the Youtube version is any better
Harry’s Game - Season 1, Episode 1 - 1982 - HD Upscale - Stereo
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Looks brighter & cleaner than the stream I watched. Didn’t know it was on YT.
TBH, neither did I until I searched for it after your posts above.
Did you watch it when shown originally?
Another from that era that was shocking when originally shown but which might seem unbelievable now.
No, I’d just moved up here and it may have been before I got a TV again. Will watch it over the next few days.
It’s easy to forget how the uk looked in the 70s and 80s.
When I’ve rewatched minder and you see how much corrugated iron was still up around bomb sites and derelict buildings let alone the empty roads where you could park anywhere
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I was recently talking to an old friend of my late Mum’s about their time living in post war South London (1950ish) & how large parts then were like Gaza. Obviously some had been tidied up/rebuilt by the 70’s but not all. Ditto for Birmingham & other large cities.
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I definitely didn’t but just watched the first 10 mins on YouTube and I quite fancy it so I’m going to give it a go tonight
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Films like Bedazzled set in London in the late 60s - early 70s are really eye opening where they are driving around and you can clearly see bomb sites and large parts levelled.
I find looking at pictures of pre war Plymouth woeful. It was beautiful. I’m not blaming the Nazis entirely for what happened here either- Post war the council pulled down many still standing (what would now be listed buildings / streets) to make way for thrilling, glamor laden sophisticated concrete turds to be dumped in the centre and called a City (Same as Coventry in many respects)
That one is blocked by the BBC on Youtube (might get it via a foreign VPN), but is available here (possibly with annoying subtitles)
There’s very little dialogue, but as I recall the events shown were recreations of what the police descriptions of each incident had said.
Will try it