The Defector

The Coordinator wants a press conference. A celebrated Russian author is defecting, and the announcement would be a triumph. Palfrey urges caution. He suspects a trap, and when the KGB starts pressing for the novelist's return, his doubts harden. The pressure is loud and public, and the more the KGB insists, the less Palfrey likes it. A genuine defection, he seems to be suggesting, does not usually come with this much orchestration. The author's safety and freedom are the stakes, and the show keeps them in view even when the diplomacy is at its stuffiest.

Julian Glover, who had already spent time menacing James Bond in For Your Eyes Only, plays the novelist Andrei Volkov with a charm that makes you want to believe him, which is exactly the point. Philip Broadley wrote the episode and Christopher Hodson directed it, and the tension comes from the gap between public performance and private reality. The press conference is a stage. Palfrey's caution is the voice telling everyone the stage has been rigged. The episode is a quiet one, built on conversations and careful glances rather than chases, and its pleasures are the small ones: a piece of stagecraft in a hotel room, a warning delivered in a neutral voice.

Alec McCowen leads as Palfrey, with Caroline Blakiston as the Coordinator, Clive Wood as Blair, Briony McRoberts as Caroline, Ronald Hines as Duggie, Deborah Grant as Yelena, Antony Brown as Kilpeck, Penny Brownjohn as Ann and Malcolm Mudie as Hopkins. The regulars settle into their familiar grooves, and Glover gives the piece its centre of gravity.

It is a fine hour about how easily grand international events can be steered from a small room, and about the value of the man who says wait. And it leaves you wondering whether Palfrey's caution saved anyone or simply delayed the inevitable, which may be the point of him.