A Spy Among Friends

The betrayal in A Spy Among Friends is already there in its premise: British intelligence officer Nicholas Elliott must confront the fact that his friend Kim Philby has been working for the Soviet Union. What remains uncertain is how much of a long friendship Elliott ever understood.

Damian Lewis and Guy Pearce make this a drama worth listening to closely. Familiar manners become difficult to read when every reassurance might be another performance. Anna Maxwell Martin adds a different pressure as an investigator questioning assumptions that Elliott's circle has been comfortable leaving alone.

This is not a succession of field missions. Its pleasures are the pauses, the evasions and the gradual discomfort of a man reconsidering somebody he trusted. The dramatisation draws on Ben Macintyre's book, but its conversations and supporting characters should not be mistaken for a documentary transcript.

For patient espionage, it makes a good contrast with the domestic double lives of The Americans. Those wanting the pace and humour of Slow Horses should expect something quieter and more sombre here.