Patrick McGoohan (1928-2009) was a curious performer and a unique talent. Playing the dashing hero John Drake in ‘Danger Man’, he became the highest-paid TV actor on British TV in the 1960s. Yet, he was born in New York to Irish immigrant parents, who then moved back to the UK. Young McGoohan spent his formative years in Sheffield, Yorkshire.
Was he British, Irish, American, or a curious combination? The actor’s intangible and chameleonic qualities stood him in good stead as he rose to the top of his profession. He was never quite like anybody else. He even managed to gain rave reviews for taking the lead in Ibsen’s ‘Brand’. The Norwegian playwright intended his work to be read rather than performed, and the part is generally considered unplayable. That’s the sort of challenge McGoohan enjoyed. He delved into his own strong Catholic beliefs and vividly brought to life Ibsen’s stubborn, intense, neurotic cleric. Perhaps McGoohan saw something of himself in the part.
His moral principles run throughout his most famous roles. Although pre-dating James Bond on screen, John Drake could be likened to the most famous British spy, popular from the early 1950s thanks to Ian Fleming’s books. With one crucial difference. Drake is not a womaniser and he rarely uses fire arms, preferring to fight with his fists. This is pure McGoohan. Married from 1951, he took his wedding vows seriously and refused to have intimacy with another woman, even on screen. There are plenty of attractive young actresses in ‘Danger Man’ whom Drake rescues from danger. But opportunities for dalliances are never acted upon. You’d be hard-pressed to find a scene in which McGoohan is affectionate with a woman in any part of his career.
The scripts for ‘Danger Man’ often suggested exotic locations that a television budget was unable to stretch to. Rather than film in Italy or Morocco, a small, unusual and at the time barely-known town in North Wales called Portmeirion was used instead. Designed by architect Clough Williams Ellis, the strange, beautiful, Renaissance-inspired place also has an eerie quality, surrounded on one side by trees and on the other by the often low tide waters of Tremadog Bay. Many episodes of ‘Danger Man’ used location filming there. When you know the place, you can spot it a mile off.
Some time during filming ‘Danger Man', an idea came to McGoohan. Portmeirion, he decided, would be the ultimate open air prison. Imagine capturing a man with sensitive knowledge and taking him there, recreating his apartment. He would be free to come and go and take part in community events, but he could never leave of his own free will. The government would use security cameras to spy on his every movement, including inside his house. The borders would be maintained by a curious device called ‘Rover’, a balloon capable of swallowing and even suffocating someone. Helicopters would be controlled by the authorities. There would be no escape. Not until he told them what they wanted to know… Why did he resign?
It only makes sense for a man like John Drake to be held at such a high security prison. A high-ranking spy resigning at the height of the Cold War would reek of defection. Paranoia runs through the veins of this series. Curiously, we never learn the name of the hero of ‘The Prisoner’. On arrival he is designated ‘Number 6’ and that is how he is referred to throughout the seventeen episodes, despite all his protestations about having his own mind and being a free man. There’s nothing to say that Number 6 is not John Drake. They were both spies. Neither of them womanise. Both prefer to fight with their fists (McGoohan was a first rate boxer in his youth). In the episode ‘Free for All' (in which Number 6 runs for local office on a ticket of handing the villagers their freedom, only to discover they don't want it) the ‘Vote for No 6' election campaign posters depict publicity photographs of Patrick McGoohan from his ‘Danger Man' days. What clearer evidence could you need that ‘The Prisoner’ is simply a continuation of John Drake’s adventures?
And then, of course, in 1975, McGoohan appeared as murderer of the week in the ‘Columbo' episode ‘Identity Crisis’. He plays a spy who murders another spy (Leslie Nielsen, who would later so wonderfully spoof the espionage genre in the ‘Naked Gun’ films). Several times, McGoohan cheerily says, “Be seeing you,” the jovial greeting used by habitants of the Village. Naturally, Columbo gets his man, and McGoohan is foiled by a plot device not a million miles away from the clue that led him to realise he was tricked in ‘The Prisoner’ episode ‘The Chimes of Big Ben’. The evidence mounts that John Drake was kidnapped and taken to the Village. His experiences there, tortured at the hands of an authoritarian regime, led him to murder a double agent in the ‘Columbo' universe. Did he suspect Leslie Nielsen had come to take him back to the Village? McGoohan’s character has several identities, from the Nelson Brenner he presents to the world to his Steinmetz spymaster alter-ego. Perhaps both assumed identities are hiding his John Drake origins?
The simplest explanation, of course, is that McGoohan is simply having fun and knowingly winking at his audience. He had previously appeared in ‘Columbo’ in ‘By Dawn’s Early Light’ and won an Emmy for his troubles. He and Falk hit it off, and the two remained lifelong close friends and collaborators. They adored working together, so when McGoohan came back for ‘Identity Crisis’, he was allowed to direct the episode too. That gave him more creative control. I bet he slipped in the “Be seeing you” references once filming was underway.
McGoohan had a long history of toying with his audience. As well as developing the concept, he also wrote and directed the pivotal episodes of ‘The Prisoner’. In the very first episode, ‘Arrival’, Number 6 gives his date of birth as 19th March 1928 – McGoohan’s own. It could be an indication that Number 6 is McGoohan, not John Drake. Difficult to pigeonhole, odd, curious, compelling, intelligent, ‘The Prisoner’ mirrors the characteristics of the creative force that drove the series into production. It is everything McGoohan wanted to say about the state of the world: the dangers of authoritarianism, the conflict between individualism and collectivism, the need for fundamental rights to be at the level of the individual, and what it means to live freely. What, one wonders, would McGoohan have made of the modern world?
The reason I love ‘The Prisoner’ is the same reason I love its star. Both are unknowable, but endlessly fascinating. On this trip through ‘The Prisoner’ – my first viewing in over a decade – I’m as thoroughly absorbed as I was in my youth. It stands up well today. As somebody who has stood against the crowd over a matter of principle and was declared ‘unmutual’, and paid a heavy price, I find Number 6 a relatable hero for any age. If more people declared that they were a person and not a government-assigned number, there would certainly be more freedom. It’s how people choose to exercise their freedom that terrifies the authorities. But that’s a conversation that must take place. As Number Six knew, if we don’t use it, we lose it, and become sheep.
Having recently watched both series, I'm increasingly of the view that Number 6 is John Drake, but with extra dashes of McGoohan thrown in. After escaping from and destroying the Village, Drake moved to California where he lived in luxury, using his former contacts to build a network of spies. It all worked out brilliantly, until Columbo wanted to ask just one more thing…
