The author of this six-part Saturday night BBC2 thriller series, Arden Winch, was once a spy, complete with an assumed name and false passport. His creation, James Crieg (Michael Bryant), is similarly equipped, painstakingly so, and artfully.
For Crieg – a physicist with an IQ in the high 160s – this is not a wholly new experience.
He was an agent once before, and now he has been recalled by the pompous, bird-brained Colonel Sparrow (Joseph O’Conor) of MI7 to find out what is happening within the secretive Independent Science Corporation (ISC) – a consortium of the world’s finest brains – and then to make his masters understand his findings.
Crieg has few human ties – no family, no friends, no ambition – which is one of his strengths.
He does, however, need regular visits to his psychiatrist Inga (Rosalie Crutchley), to keep him ticking over.
When Crieg finally learns from De Lacelle (Richard Hurndall) the true aims of the ISC – a scientifically-engineered new world order – he is almost swayed to join them but balks at the organisation’s lack of humanity.
Meanwhile, with his cover blown, Sparrow of MI7 quietly orders Crieg to be certified insane.
Premiering on 19 March, 1967, The Paradise Makers was a first-rate tale.
Dr James Crieg
Michael Bryant Colonel Sparrow
Joseph O’Conor Inga Swynnerton
Rosalie Crutchley Walters
Roy Spencer De Lacelle
Richard Hurndall Jean
Marian Diamond Inga’s secretary
Jayne Sofiano Bulmer
John Bryans Varour
Carl Bernard
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He was an agent once before, and now he has been recalled by the pompous, bird-brained Colonel Sparrow (Joseph O’Conor) of MI7 to find out what is happening within the secretive Independent Science Corporation (ISC) – a consortium of the world’s finest brains – and then to make his masters understand his findings.
