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 sends 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 backyard.
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 Bradford and Leeds. Yorkshire Television shot most of the scenes in a now demolished housing area in the Burley area of Leeds, adjacent to the YTV Studios.
The British Army refused co-operation unless a two page list of script alterations was conceded. Neither the author nor the producer was prepared to make such sweeping changes in a text which had already sold in hundreds of thousands as a novel, so the production proceeded without the advantage of easy access to authentic Army vehicles and weapons.
Capt. Harry Brown Ray Lonnen Billy Downes
Derek Thompson Right Hon. Henry Danby MP
Robert Morris Mrs Danby
Brigid O’Hara Home Secretary
Geoffrey Russell Minister of Defence
Denys Hawthorne General Sir Jocelyn Fairbairn
Noel Johnson Inspector Howard Rennie
Sean Caffrey Davidson
Benjamin Whitrow Bannen
Nicholas Day Mrs Downes
Margaret Shevlin Theresa McCorrigan
Linda Robson Col. George Frost
Geoffrey Chater Seamus Duffryn
Charles Lawson Mrs Duffryn
Rita Howard Mrs Duncan
Elizabeth Begley Josephine Laverty
Gil Brailey Frankie
Christopher Whitehouse Captain Arthur Fairclough
Andy Abrahams
