Just finished Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy by John le Carre for our first #LBC3Reads of the year (Saturday, 16th, 12.30pm via zoom!).

So have given myself a night off to give the 2011 film a shot.

The cast is a bit impressive –

• Gary Oldman – George Smiley.
• Kathy Burke – Connie Sachs.
• Benedict Cumberbatch – Peter Guillam.
• David Dencik – Toby Esterhase.
• Colin Firth -Bill Haydon.
• Stephen Graham – Jerry Westerby.
• Tom Hardy – Ricki Tarr.
• John Hurt – Control.

BLURB

In the early 1970s during the Cold War, the head of British Intelligence, Control (Sir John Hurt), resigns after an operation in Budapest, Hungary goes badly wrong. It transpires that Control believed one of four senior figures in the service was in fact a Russian Agent, a mole, and the Hungary operation was an attempt to identify which of them it was. George Smiley (Gary Oldman) had been forced into retirement by the departure of Control, but is asked by a senior government figure to investigate a story told to him by rogue Agent Ricky Tarr (Tom Hardy), that there was a mole. Smiley considers that the failure of the Hungary operation and the continuing success of Operation Witchcraft (an apparent source of significant Soviet Intelligence) confirms this, and takes up the task of finding him.

David Brain, IMDB

I can’t quite fathom how they could impossibly include as much of the intricate detail as in the book but I’ll let you know!