A Cabinet minister is gunned down outside his home in London by a member of the Provisional IRA.
Security protocols come into immediate effect, but the assassin evades them and manages to get back to Belfast unscathed. The military send in Captain Harry Brown (Ray Lonnen) – a soldier who specialises in deep cover work in hostile situations – into the Falls Road area of Belfast, a place notorious for civil unrest.
His mission: to infiltrate himself into the local population, hunt down the assassin and kill him on his own territory – proving to the IRA that they are not safe, even in their own back yard.
This tensely realistic thriller from ITV was a terrifying game of cat and mouse, taking place in a civilian-occupied war zone, where one mistake could mean certain death.
Adapted by former ITN journalist Gerald Seymour from his own novel, the three-part series was also shown as a 145-minute film. The evocative theme music from Clannad entered the pop charts in 1982.
TRIVIA Harry’s Game was filmed not in Northern Ireland but in Leeds. Yorkshire Television shot most of the scenes in a now demolished housing area in the Burley area of the city, adjacent to their Leeds Studios.
