Memories of a Circus Scalphunter: Alec Sabin recalls his time in Smiley's service
Alec Sabin played the dependable Circus factotum Fawn in the BBC adaptation of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. He recently sat down with Jonathan Moran to talk about his role in the series and the career he has since had in broadcasting and training.
JM: Hi Alec, thanks so much for agreeing to talk to me about your work on Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy.
AS: My pleasure, Jonathan. I’ve been approached before by people who want to know more about the making of the Dr Who episodes I was in (which featured Beryl Reid and were directed by Peter Grimwade, first assistant director on TTSS), but I’ve not been approached by anyone interested in TTSS, its popularity and elevated rating notwithstanding.
(Alec Sabin as Fawn in Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy)
JM: I’m very happy to correct that oversight! Perhaps we could start by talking about how you came to be cast?
AS: I remember going up for the job and meeting John Irvin, probably in the BBC offices on Shepherd’s Bush Green. I’m fairly confident that Arthur Hopcraft would have suggested me for Fawn. I can’t remember reading for the part (there is so little dialogue for Fawn), but I think John Irvin was impressed by my stories of working with John Gielgud at the Royal Court Theatre (Veterans by Charles Wood). He may have known my work from Granada. Of course, as you know, John Irvin, Jonathan Powell and Arthur Hopcraft had all worked at Granada which was a great place for TV drama and documentaries at that time and had been since the 60s. I had played the lead in a film written by Arthur Hopcraft in 1971 (The Panel) and I was then in at least two other TV projects Arthur wrote (Katapult and Nightingale’s Boys). Just prior to TTSS I was in Collision Course, which was a TV drama documentary film from Granada directed by Leslie Woodhead, one of those exciting young directors from the Granada stable, which included Michael Apted.
JM: I thought Arthur Hopcraft’s script for TTSS was wonderful. How did you come to know him?
AS: Arthur and I had been good friends since working on The Panel. We often had lunch and talked on the phone. We also went on trips. I worked as a sort of researcher for him when he was writing the dramatisation of A Perfect Spy and we went to Prague, Munich and Vienna. Incidentally Arthur disliked the term 'adaptation' or 'adaptor', preferring 'dramatisation' saying adaptor sounded like something you plugged in the wall!
JM: I very much enjoyed the BBC dramatisation of A Perfect Spy. It’s an excellent series with strong leads and a great script. Most actors who worked on TTSS took part in a rehearsal period before filming began. Were you involved in anything like that?
AS: I seem to remember there was a read-through of TTSS. According to my diary that may have taken place on 28 October 1978 in St Mary Abbot’s Church Hall, Vicarage Gate, London W8. Although that entry in my diary may have been just for a rehearsal. All the cast would have been summoned. I may be wrong but I am not sure Beryl Reid was there. She had a difficult relationship with the series. Guinness was nervous of her. She was probably nervous of him. She was quite eccentric, which I found out later when I worked with her on Dr Who. We had quite a lot together on that show. I did hear a funny story about filming her first scene with Guinness. I heard that as they shot it in sequence the first shot was Guinness at the front door of her house in Oxford. She opens the door and has the line ‘George Smiley!’ The camera is on her as she opens the door. What I heard was that on the first take she opened the door and said instead “I’ve forgotten his ******* name!’. Whether it’s true I don’t nor cannot know. But it’s a good story. And what a good scene!
JM: That is a brilliant story. What a shame no out-takes from the series survive as I’d love to have seen that. You worked with pretty much the entire principal cast over the course of the series. What are your memories of working with this prodigious group of actors?
AS: My scenes were with Michael Jayston, Alec Guinness, Hywel Bennett and Bernard Hepton. I think my only dialogue seemed to be with Alec Guinness. In my diary I simply put in the rehearsal and filming dates for TTSS without any further comment. In fact other things going on for me at that time attracted more comment. It suggests therefore that I treated the job as a run-of-the-mill engagement of days worthy of no special comment, like any other jobbing actor at the time. I don’t think I was especially awed by the stellar cast who, like other actors on a film set (especially in television), just got on with the job. As I am sure you know, filming is not just about actors. It’s the crew, the weather, time of day (especially for night shoots), aeroplanes and other noise, location, the lighting, large vans of equipment, make-up and costume and catering vans. I always remember from filming days that you tended to spend more time with the make-up and costume people than with other actors. You were with the other actors generally only when shooting a scene with them, but that seemed to take up only a small percentage of the day. You could be called (and usually were) hours before you were actually used, as camera and other people tended to decide on the priorities of the schedule in which actors had no say – even distinguished ones. Also as scenes were usually shot out of sequence and what you were working on were usually only 2 or 3 pages of script per day, you didn’t feel the experience of being part of the whole project, especially with a minor role like mine. This is not to say that you didn’t take the work seriously. I was especially nervous if I had dialogue and business, and I was aware that so many other people depended on me not only getting it right but being at my best. This became evident especially when directors went for more takes – one’s own contribution to a shot was only one of many that may influence the director to ‘print that one’.
I do remember filming in November 1978 on a scene with Alec Guinness, Michael Jayston and Hywel Bennett which was during a union work-to-rule at the BBC. We had to finish at 5pm sharp, as the technicians would refuse to work later. It was touch and go and particularly stressful for me because I was due to fly to California the very next morning, and if we didn’t finish I would probably have to come back the next day and miss my flight. In fact I was in the scene we were filming at 5pm and it all depended on John Irvin saying he was happy with that final take. We had done several takes. So you can imagine how relieved I was when John Irvin did say he was happy with that take at 5pm. I read that John Irvin was worried Guinness would throw a wobbly if he was being frustrated by the work-to-rule or even walk off the show. I was completely unaware of these tensions at the time. All the actors did their jobs professionally.
JM: Did you interact much with Sir Alec Guinness outside of the scenes you filmed?
AS: There are longueurs during filming when you’re standing around waiting to shoot scenes. I do remember that Guinness wasn’t chatty. I think I tried one conversational gambit with him, saying that I was (and still am) often called ‘Alex’ by mistake – did he have the same problem? He said that no, he didn’t have that problem. I was embarrassed when I realised that of course being the most famous Alec in the world, which he surely was, he would not encounter that particular problem. I also remember Guinness being –what can I say – not particularly easy to work with. I think he was constantly thinking about how he came across in a shot. This is not to say he was selfish – I think it’s what film actors of his experience do. He’s not there to help you; he’s there to do the job. It’s best not to be nervous, but just get on with one’s own job. It’s best not to be in awe. Fortunately as an actor you can rely on your character to see you through – hopefully!
JM: I think John le Carré remarked on a set visit that he dare not interrupt Guinness while he was preparing to film a scene, as Guinness’ focus was totally on the mindset and motivation of Smiley. Did you have much to do with the rest of the cast and production team?
AS: I found Michael Jayston very easy going and friendly. Hywel Bennett was more self absorbed – I remember he proposed getting a bar in his room in the Newbury location hotel. Bernard Hepton seemed a bit like his character Toby Esterhase but then he may have been in character, even on the bus the cast were being transported in. Betty Willingale (Script Editor) became a friend. I think it’s fair to say Arthur, Le Carré and Guinness could all be quite difficult. Arthur hated anyone changing anything he had written. David Cornwell and Guinness were also tricky but in fact all three, I think, respected each other; and Irvin and Powell too. Five outstanding professionals. I think sometimes they are equally responsible for the fantastic success TTSS became.
(Bernard Hepton, Michael Jayston and Alec Sabin)
JM: Have you seen the series recently?
AS: I am a great fan and whenever it’s repeated on broadcast TV I ask myself ‘do I want to watch this again?’ But then after about five minutes into the first episode I’m hooked and have to continue! And it’s never about my involvement with the show which – let’s admit – was fairly peripheral, but the story. It’s that hook that gets into you and doesn’t let go. Of course Guinness is wonderful but then, what a cast – I’d watch anything with any of those principals in it. But that ‘hook’ which makes you go on watching isn’t caused by any one thing in my opinion – and you get it reading Le Carré of course.
JM: I agree – I find the series endlessly compelling. I was reading Legacy of Spies again the other day and noticed Fawn crops up briefly in that novel. If they had made The Honourable Schoolboy would you have been tempted to return to the role?
AS: I did ask around at the time if they could make The Honourable Schoolboy, which is a cracking book, partly because Fawn has a bigger part in it than in TTSS. The thinking was, I seem to remember, that it would be too big a project for a TV series.
JM: I know you stopped acting a few years after TTSS. Where did your career take you next?
AS: In fact looking at my diaries and IMDb I see that I was still working as an actor into the 90s but from the mid-80s I was also getting into radio journalism. My interest in journalism started when I was doing research for Arthur Hopcraft, which I mentioned earlier. Arthur was a prominent journalist before his successful career as screenwriter. In addition to The Perfect Spy we worked on several projects, notably in the early 80s on an American TV series about the life of Hemingway, for which Arthur wrote the screenplay. The research trip took us all over the United States and Europe. I remember spending a week in Havana (not an easy trip from Miami in those days). Time was running out and we needed a government department to authorise access to the house where Hemingway had lived – which we only managed shortly before getting our flight to Florida from a military airport. We arrived in Miami to see people dressed up for Halloween. A real culture shock. Another project was working on a feature Arthur wrote and John Irvin was to direct about ballroom dancing. It got pulled at the very last moment for financial reasons and the glory went to Baz Lurhmann’s Strictly Ballroom which came later. I did make a BBC radio documentary about the subject, so not all was lost.
I took a year out in 1984 and trained as a radio journalist and then worked in radio stations in the UK and Europe. I even spent 6 months in Saudi Arabia reading the news and presenting on their English language TV channel. After a while I settled at the BBC World Service at Bush House in London where I worked as newsreader, presenter and journalist. We had a huge worldwide audience and I remember hearing my colleagues in far-flung places when I travelled, two of which come to mind – half-way up a mountain in the Peruvian Andes on shortwave and on a taxi cab radio at midnight in San Francisco…. ‘BBC World Service ...the news with…. Alec Sabin….’
JM: Eventually you moved into a new career in training and coaching. How did that come about?
AS: At the start of the new millennium I was still at the BBC but I devoted my time to teaching and training others in the skills needed to come across effectively on radio, TV and the internet. I came to it with my background in acting and journalism. My clients were journalists mainly from the language services. And I’m still doing it, albeit via Zoom these days, but it means I can train people in Sao Paolo, Lagos or wherever. And often they’re broadcasting in their native language. Last week I had Chinese and Iranian journalists, so in Mandarin and Farsi. My only foreign language is French (useful for some African journalists), but I train people from any of the 20 or so language services at the BBC as well as the BBC radio and TV everyone knows. The principles of good presentation are the same whatever the language. I published a book on the subject which is still selling – ‘You’re On! The Broadcast Presentation Handbook’ – and the BBC has sent me all over the UK as well as to Washington, Moscow, Eastern Europe and Africa to train their journalists. For those who are interested, my website alecsabin.com has more.
JM: Alec, thanks once again for taking the time to talk to us about your career and your recollections of working on TTSS. You’ve provided another glimpse into the making of this remarkable production.
AS: As a fan of the series myself it’s been great to talk with you about it. Keep up the good work with the website!
All screen captures (c) 1979 BBC
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