Paranoid Visions provides an extensive historical account of the spy and conspiracy genres in British television drama, tracing a lineage from 1960s Cold War series, through 1980s paranoid conspiracy dramas, to contemporary ‘war on terror’ thrillers. It argues that the on-screen depictions of intelligence services can interpreted as metaphors for the production cultures that created the programmes, meditating on the roles and responsibilities of public institutions whose trade is information and ideas. It incorporates close analyses of classic series including Callan, The Sandbaggers, Edge of ... More

Paranoid Visions provides an extensive historical account of the spy and conspiracy genres in British television drama, tracing a lineage from 1960s Cold War series, through 1980s paranoid conspiracy dramas, to contemporary ‘war on terror’ thrillers. It argues that the on-screen depictions of intelligence services can interpreted as metaphors for the production cultures that created the programmes, meditating on the roles and responsibilities of public institutions whose trade is information and ideas. It incorporates close analyses of classic series including Callan, The Sandbaggers, Edge of Darkness, A Very British Coup, Spooks and the BBC adaptation of John Le Carré’s Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, supported by new archival research. The account is positioned against aesthetic, institutional and technological shifts in British television drama as it transitioned from its traditional public service principles to the more commercial priorities of the multi-channel era, in particular examining the growth of long-form serial narratives in ‘quality’ television. It is also mapped closely to the real history of British intelligence through consideration of how such programmes responded to key scandals and exposés and counterblast campaigns of transparency and openness. Finally, it also situates these dramas against key issues in the history of British culture and national identity, including discourses of class politics, Cold War culture, the heritage industry, terrorism past and present, the decline of the social-democratic consensus, the growth of personal computing and the ascendance of the free market economy.