JOHN DRAKE IS THE PRISONER

The iconic sixties TV series The Prisoner is celebrating its fiftieth year, and still continues to fascinate, bemuse or just downright annoy viewers.

It’s central theme of a person’s individuality struggling against the collective might of authority still has a lot of appeal.  

It was first broadcast in Canada on the 6^th September 1967, followed by the UK on 29^th September 1967. America had to wait until 1^ST June 1968.

The academically inclined still like to pour over the inner meanings of the symbolism and the allegorical aspects of the series, as indeed was the original intention of its star, Patrick McGoohan. Others simply accept and enjoy the show’s surreal look, innovative ideas and mystery.

The Prisoner's London home - No 1 Buckingham Place ....Is this a clue? Ask Mrs Butterworth.

When I watched it as a youngster during its first showing in 1967, I  saw hero Number 6 as secret agent John Drake, and to be honest fifty years later I still do. I know now that to have referred to him as Drake would have meant paying the creator of Dangerman, Ralph Smart royalties, but that wasn’t my concern.

Abington Street Car Park across the way from the Houses of Parliament, the country's seat of power. We see Number Six enter, resign and leave followed by the mysterious Undertakers. Wherever you look it's another piece of symbolism, isn't it?

I’ve always liked the slick look of those sixties ITC shows and when John Drake or as he would become known, Number Six woke in the mysterious Village I was intrigued.  Following that long fast paced title sequence  when we see Number Six drive his Lotus Seven across London, down into an underground car park, and angrily tender his resignation to his pen pushing, tea drinking superior (played, as everyone knows by the series co-creator and script editor George Markstein)  I was hooked, along with the question ‘Who is Number One?

A View from The Villa: The Prisoner's first view of the Village.

As the series continued, only 17 episodes remember, what my young mind did see was John Drake….er Number Six  involved less in spy and adventure stories like The Chimes of Big Ben and Many Happy Returns  and more in science fiction and fantasy,  The Schizoid Man or The General .  Each story had its allegorical interpretation but I had to think about it. The Western episode Living in Harmony and the mind transference story, Do Not Forsake Me Oh My Darling were a little bewildering, but I have to admit, nothing could prepare me for the penultimate episode, Once upon A Time. Number Six was acting like someone who’d lost his mind, not the superspy hero that I remembered previously from Danger Man.  

The Green Dome, home of ever changing Number Two and his diminutive butler.

The last episode Fall Out was finally aired. Number Two, the face of authority was dead. Would we find out who Number One really was? Number Six wanted to know, as did most of the viewing public. It turned out that Number One was… quite disappointing actually.

Number Six's home in the Village...made very welcome.

When the series was re-shown several years later it had become the cult it is today. Many articles have been written theorising about all the various aspects of what the Village really was; who ran it, and who indeed was the real Number One.

George Markstein, the co-creator (some might argue the creator) of The Prisoner,  apparently had an alternative more conventional ending, however it was McGoohan’s alternative vision that gives the series it’s enduring cult appeal.

However I’m still reassured by George Markstein’s simple summing up of the hero:

“Who is Number Six? …no mystery,  he was a secret agent called John Drake who quit”

Be seeing you!