First viewed : 25 October 1982
By contrast , I knew pretty much exactly when this one was going to crop up because its haunting theme tune was a big hit and introduced the hitherto obscure Irish folk group Clannad to an international audience.
Harry's Game was a three-part adaptation, by Yorkshire TV on consecutive week nights, of a Gerald Seymour novel. Harry Brown ( Ray Lonnen ) is a serving army officer sent undercover into the Republican community to flush out an IRA hitman Billy Downes ( Derek Thompson ) who has just assassinated a Cabinet minister in London. He eventually manages to trace Downes through his own girlfriend Josephine ( Gil Brailey ) but the IRA are also on to him.
It's a tense, gripping thriller which manages to capture the bleak pointlessness of the conflict without laying it on with a trowel. It's not black and white either. Harry is a ruthless operator who doesn't think twice about endangering Josephine while Billy starts regretting his involvement from the moment he pulls the trigger. There's some harrowing moments particularly the suicide of teenager Theresa ( Linda Robson ) who gets caught between a rock and a hard place.
Lonnen put in a great performance as Harry but I can't say the same about Thompson whose limitations as an actor are rather exposed here. Tony Rohr is chilling as his brigade commander; he's played IRA men so often I'm sure even Gerry Adams thinks he's a comrade.
The climax is suitably exciting though you have to ignore a major continuity gaffe when Downes's shattered windscreen repairs itself mid-car chase.
I'd love to see it again for more than one reason. The back streets of Leeds doubled for Belfast and it seems very likely that the area I lived in during my last year at University there was featured. From the few clips on YouTube, I haven't spotted the actual street I lived on ( Thomas St ) but perhaps in the whole series it would be there.
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