This dramatisation of John Le Carre's novel proved a landmark in British Television. It received supreme critical acclaim for the screenplay by Arthur Hopcraft, the star Alec Guiness and the camerawork of Tony Pierce-Roberts.
In Alec Guiness's first major TV role he plays George Smiley, a retired agent who is secretly brought into 'the Circus' (the code name for British Secret Intelligence Service) to root out a top-level mole. Gradually piecing together the story, the weary but determined Smiley trawls through the murky waters of Cold War espionage and his own past.