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Joseph Oldham @paranoidstylist.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

Fortunately, I have just recorded another podcast on Tinker Tailor 79, so balance is restored...

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Joseph Oldham @paranoidstylist.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

Have momentary stepped away from my fascination with Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy 1979 to have a fun chat with @drgaine.bsky.social about Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy 2011 for his excellent podcast The Spy with the Blood-Tinted Glasses. open.spotify.com/episode/53r4...

open.spotify.com

The Spy with the Blood-Tinted Glasses #13 - Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

The Spy with the Blood-Tinted Glasses · Episode

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Joseph Oldham @paranoidstylist.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

open.spotify.com

The Spy with the Blood-Tinted Glasses #13 - Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

The Spy with the Blood-Tinted Glasses · Episode

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Joseph Oldham @paranoidstylist.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

Fans of Arthur Hopcraft might be interested to know that the University of Salford have put digitised versions of some of his papers online. Includes episodic breakdowns for Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy and A Perfect Spy, and a full Ep 1 script for TTSS. salford.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/co...

salford.primo.exlibrisgroup.com

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Joseph Oldham @paranoidstylist.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

Excited to be speaking at ‘The Cultural Imaginary of the Cambridge Spies’ workshop at the National Archive, London on Friday 18 September. I'll be on in Session 1 at 10am, talking about the impact of the Cambridge Five on spy literature, film & TV, John le Carré and beyond... kcsi.uk/the-afterliv...

kcsi.uk

The Afterlives of the Cambridge Spies

Funding: 24m Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) Curiosity Grant (March 2026 - February 2028) Overview of Project: The Cambridge spy ring was one…

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James Cooray Smith @ Midday Matinées / Psychic Paper @cooraysmith.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

buttondown.com/cooray_smith... I've had what might be a new, and possibly even significant, thought about Doctor Who's late 1980s cancellation. This is a free subscribers e-mail, and free to read on the site too, but if you agree, why not become a paid subscriber? Or indeed, even if you don't.

Sophie Aldred, a young white woman, is trapped in a water tank. Don't worry, she got out.

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Joseph Oldham @paranoidstylist.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

kcsi.uk

The Afterlives of the Cambridge Spies

Funding: 24m Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) Curiosity Grant (March 2026 - February 2028) Overview of Project: The Cambridge spy ring was one…

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Jason Thompson, Exemplar of Enjoyable Pedantry @jasonjtt.bsky.social · 13/09/2026

Today we remember those brave souls of Moonbase Alpha, wherever they may be. Lost for 27 years…

static.klipy.com

Space1999 Breakawayday

ALT: Space1999 Breakawayday

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Simon Threadgold🍂 @sthreadgold.bsky.social · 07/03/2026

"I've got a story to tell you. It's all about spies. And if it's true, which I think it is, you boys are gonna need a whole new organisation." "You know this is AA, right?" "Oh, wrong room. Sorry."

George Smiley and 2 colleagues sat in a row opposite spy, back to us, in stately home.

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Ian Greaves @greavesian.bsky.social · 06/09/2026

Join me for a skeetalong-a- #PendasFen this Wednesday night when BBC4 reruns it from 10.15pm. Behind the scenes stories, pics and things to spot. If you've seen the play before, then follow live. If it's new to you, give it proper attention and then join the # on catch up. Link in bio to the book.

Title screen for Play for Today: Penda's Fen (1974)

Close up on Dictionary of Place Names reading "Penda's fen" with Penda in italics.

Cover of Penda's Fen: Scene by Scene (Ten Acre Books 2025)

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Ian Greaves @greavesian.bsky.social · 09/09/2026

Play for Today was not the only strand for single dramas, but it was the benchmark and marquee space for new writing on British television between 1970-84. Unfortunately, ever since its 1975 repeat, #PendasFen has been bereft of its original PFT titles. So here they are. Music: Carl Davis.

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Joseph Oldham @paranoidstylist.bsky.social · 09/09/2026

Very much looking forward to watching #PendasFen tonight. Have only seen it once before (in rubbish quality) so this should be a treat...

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Joseph Oldham @paranoidstylist.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

A really terrific listen, this. I've always struggled a bit with GBH (even after Verity Lambert's editing, I find it too long, baggy and unfocused), but the story behind its creation and its place in British TV drama in the early 1990s is fascinating, and so well-explored here.

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Ian Greaves @greavesian.bsky.social · 26/08/2026

The first BBC repeat since NINETEEN SEVENTY-FIVE. Which is just mad.

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Joseph Oldham @paranoidstylist.bsky.social · 31/08/2026

Doing some archival research on a production from the year 2000 - a truly fascinating moment when people were using letters, faxes AND emails all at the same time...

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Joseph Oldham @paranoidstylist.bsky.social · 30/08/2026

I'm gonna admit that I think I'm struggling a bit to re-adapt to life in the UK after five years in Egypt. Is there anywhere in the northwest where people meet to chat about old TV? (I have other interests too, but that's what I'm mainly on here for...)

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Michael Hobbes @michaelhobbes.bsky.social · 28/08/2026

I have never seen a moral panic grip a country so quickly or thoroughly

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The Wilder Way: Starring Patrick Wymark @harrydobermann.bsky.social · 26/08/2026

This was when you saved me from my folly of thinking THE AWEFUL MR GOODALL was an attempt to retread the failed Smiley serial wymark.org.uk/goodall.html

wymark.org.uk

Patrick Wymark, The Power Game actor

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Joseph Oldham @paranoidstylist.bsky.social · 27/08/2026

I'm researching the role of The Ink Factory in making the modern John le Carré adaptations, and I find myself wondering - just how common is it for adapted authors / their families/estates to have their own companies overseeing new screen adaptations? Anyone know of any other notable examples?

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Phil Norman @mrphilnorman.bsky.social · 26/08/2026

So much to choose from with Tim Curry, but you could do worse than have a root through his work with Howard Schuman, with whose decadent, high key videotape fantasies he was a perfect fit.

As Mik in Verite (1973). "I just wader round London until I see something that gives me a mental orgasm, then I shoot it!"

As Stevie Streeter in Rock Follies of '77. "Yowzer!"

As Teddy Whazz in Videostars (1983). "Is there something about me that makes you nervous?"

Teddy Whazz again. "That's the kind of honest, no crap, unstructured anarchy typical of Channel D!"

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archivetvmusings @archivetvmusings.bsky.social · 25/08/2026

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy previewed in the Daily Mirror (25th August 1979)

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Joseph Oldham @paranoidstylist.bsky.social · 20/08/2026

Aha, a glimpse of Tony Garnett being shot at the Berlin Wall in the pictures in Don Taylor's Days of Vision. A strange collision of cultural worlds here...

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Joseph Oldham @paranoidstylist.bsky.social · 19/08/2026

I step away from my computer for 30 minutes, and by the time I return my heroic Bywater Street Irregulars are all over it several times over. Thanks so much everyone!

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Joseph Oldham @paranoidstylist.bsky.social · 19/08/2026

I don't suppose any of you nice people have easy access to back issues of The Stage and Television Today, specifically 23 January 1975? I understand there's something in there about LWT's mid-1970s attempt to adapt Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy which I'm trying to investigate...

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Ruth Pearce @notrightruth.bsky.social · 15/08/2026

So I dealt with plagiarism issues pretty much every other week as a journal editor, and it's entirely possible to quietly get on with this without teaming up with a bunch of (other) racists and hound a man to death.

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Joseph Oldham @paranoidstylist.bsky.social · 13/08/2026

I was going to set a reminder to take the bins out tonight, but actually I think I'll be OK

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Joseph Oldham @paranoidstylist.bsky.social · 10/08/2026

The collection 'Berlin and the BBC: A Century of Sound and Vision' is now out from De Gruyter Brill, featuring my chapter '"You Have Become a Citizen of No Man's Land – I Send you my Greetings": Screening Berlin in the BBC's John le Carré Adaptations'. www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi...

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Joseph Oldham @paranoidstylist.bsky.social · 28/07/2026

Fascinated to discover that, six months before publication of The Spy who Came in from the Cold, David Mercer's (now missing) TV play The Birth of a Private Man also features a protagonist who ends up getting shot at the Berlin Wall. Playing this role was Tony Garnett, who recalls it in his memoir:

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Joseph Oldham @paranoidstylist.bsky.social · 14/07/2026

Now published - my article on an unproduced late 1970s film biopic of Kim Philby from the pen of Arthur Hopcraft, in the same period he adapted Tinker Tailor Solder Spy for TV. With guest appearances from Michael Caine, Robert Shaw, Michael Winner... sosconference2015.wordpress.com/wp-content/u...

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Joseph Oldham @paranoidstylist.bsky.social · 25/07/2026

Eric Thompson, on condition that he has no idea what's going on and has to make up a completely new story from the visuals.

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Joseph Oldham @paranoidstylist.bsky.social · 24/07/2026

I'm pretty sure I once I identified one of my anonymous academic peer reviewers... from the fact that I was borrowing their office at the time. I looked around, and everything they were asking me to read was on the shelf behind me. Seemed a bit too neat to be a coincidence.

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Joseph Oldham @paranoidstylist.bsky.social · 24/07/2026

Reading @tobyhadoke.bsky.social's excellent book has put me on a Quatermass Experiment kick, watching the surviving episodes, reading the script book, etc. It's sooo good. I know that ...and the Pit is probably objectively the best of them because of how the production quality comes on in leaps...

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Joseph Oldham @paranoidstylist.bsky.social · 24/07/2026

Meeting with my MP to say 'trans rights' today. Trying to collect and organise my thoughts...

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Joseph Oldham @paranoidstylist.bsky.social · 16/07/2026

I'm reading this now - really fascinating and absorbing.

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Joseph Oldham @paranoidstylist.bsky.social · 14/07/2026

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Joseph Oldham @paranoidstylist.bsky.social · 02/07/2026

First draft manuscript of the new book - submitted (at last!)

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Joseph Oldham @paranoidstylist.bsky.social · 13/06/2026

Perking up in a cafe because somebody's ring tone is the Z-Cars theme tune

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Joseph Oldham @paranoidstylist.bsky.social · 11/06/2026

Love researching with archival documents, hate figuring out citation formats for archival documents.

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Joseph Oldham @paranoidstylist.bsky.social · 07/06/2026

"One word will do it, Jim. I'm almost there."

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Tobias Wilson-Bates @phdhurtbrain.bsky.social · 17/05/2026

University President: Good afternoon Class of 2026! Please put your hands together for this year’s graduation speaker, MOLOCH!!

static.klipy.com

Metropolis Silent Film: Moloch Scene

Alt: Metropolis Silent Film: Moloch Scene

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Joseph Oldham @paranoidstylist.bsky.social · 18/05/2026

In a desperate bid to get this book on John le Carré TV adaptations under control, tomorrow I will be checking into a B&B in Dawlish, with a 1987 issue of the Radio Times as my guide. Hoping this goes better for me than Magnus Pym...

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Joseph Oldham @paranoidstylist.bsky.social · 16/05/2026

Seeing The Spy who Came in from the Cold at the Liverpool Playhouse tonight. Wondering how they'll do the bit where he skis off a cliff and opens a Union Jack Parachute, I can image that's tricky to do on stage.

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Joseph Oldham @paranoidstylist.bsky.social · 13/05/2026

I'm reviewing the press coverage of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (1979) and Smiley's People (1982) and struck by an interesting pattern. Both times, Episode 1 goes out early in the week and gets some generally good press coverage from the weekday papers...

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Joseph Oldham @paranoidstylist.bsky.social · 19/04/2026

Watching the first episode of The Mask of Janus. A bit wild to see a version of the Philby as triple agent actually working for the British theory making its way into a BBC drama as early as 1965. www.youtube.com/watch?v=dLZI...

youtube.com

The Mask of Janus - Series 1 - Episode 1 ( Them Is Anyone That Isn't Us Fri ) Oct 8, 1965

YouTube video by Vintage Television

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