CAMBRIDGE REDS

Spotlight

The mini-series is not dead—at least not in Great Britain. Cambridge Spies, a new, four-part BBC drama—think James Bond meets Gosford Park—tells of four men who met at Cambridge in the 1930s and went on to serve two masters, the K.G.B. and their homeland.

The series stars Toby Stephens as Kim Philby, Tom Hollander as Guy Burgess, Rupert Penry-Jones as Donald Maclean, and Samuel West as Anthony Blunt. The four were "devastatingly effective double agents who knew from the start that they stood or fell together," said Peter Moffat, the writer of the series. "Burgess is the loudest spy in the history of espionage. Philby is the most successful spy of the lot, becoming head of counter-intelligence in M.I.6. Blunt is cool, viciously funny and clever, while Maclean veers between being warm and friendly and drunk and difficult."

Double agents are hard to root for—but Cambridge Spies makes a splendid case. "It is controversial, portraying these guys as heroes," says Penry-Jones. "But to stand up for what you believe in the way they did is pretty heroic."