We Want Information

B. and I were discussing the ITC television series The Prisoner the other day, and I happened to mention the connection with Patrick McGoohan's previous spy series, Danger Man.

"So is the Prisoner meant to be the same person as Danger Man?" she asked me.

"Well," I said.

I explained to her that the writers of the Prisoner tie-in novels published in the early seventies had certainly referred to Number Six as "Drake", but that it was doubtful whether they had the authority to declare canonically that the two characters were identical. I mentioned Leo McKern's often-misheard line in the episode Once Upon a Time, where he tells Number Six (temporarily regressed to schoolboyhood) "See me in my study during the morning break" -- and not, as some have firmly maintained, "during the morning, Drake". I mused that Number Six's anonymity seems to be so intrinsic to the character of The Prisoner that identifying him as a specific person would be damaging to the text as a whole, adding that the name of McGoohan's production company, "Everyman Films Ltd" seemed to bear this out. Judiciously, however, I added that the makers of The Prisoner didn't actually own the rights to the characters from Danger Man anyway, so it might be that they were pursuing a "neither confirm nor deny" policy, so as to keep Danger Man fans interested while avoiding legal entanglements. On balance, I concluded, Number Six was possibly John Drake, but that any direct confirmation of the point -- as the seventies novels had attempted -- seemed in direct contradiction of the spirit of the series.

There was a bit of a pause then, as it dawned on me that this might have been a fuller answer than B. had been entirely in need of at this point in her life. For a moment my marriage very possibly hung in the balance, then she smiled fondly and said, "Thank you, darling. That was a very thorough answer."

I'm so lucky to have her.