PBS Stages Smashing, ‘Very British Coup’

Harry Perkins is a menace.

At least that’s the view of the rigid Establishment--America’s CIA, conservative elements of the British media and bureaucracy and the highest echelons of Perkins’ own government--which sees in this newly elected prime minister a monstrous threat who shows “alarming signs of turning into a major statesman.”

They’re terrified because Perkins is a strong-willed reformer, a Laborite outsider and third-generation steelworker determined to sweep away musty ways and fulfill the campaign pledges he made to the British electorate that overwhelmingly elected him over his Tory opponent--presumably Margaret Thatcher. Not merely distrusted because of a revolutionary agenda that includes dismantling nuclear weapons and ridding British soil of U.S. military bases, he is also targeted for destruction.

It’s the 1990s, a very appropriate setting for “A Very British Coup.”

Here’s a promise: You’ll find nothing better on television than this rousing, provocative political thriller from Britain, airing on PBS in two parts Sunday and Monday under the “Masterpiece Theatre” banner (at 8 each night on Channels 50 and 24, at 9 on Channels 28 and 15).

It’s smashing.

You’ll also find no more exhilarating performance than Ray McAnally’s as Perkins. An actor of infinite surprises who keeps you intrigued by appearing always to withhold a little something, McAnally’s work both as Perkins and that endearing cad Rick Pym of last fall’s “A Perfect Spy” on PBS affirms his lofty ranking among character actors. He’s a whopper.

The protagonist McAnally plays here is a tough, pragmatic, charming, slippery, TV-smart populist of a politician who initially seems caught off guard by the crippling problems he faces in office and the depth of the conspiracy to undermine him. He’s not a man to be underestimated, however, even though the clandestine conspirators opposing him include a powerful media lord a la Rupert Murdoch and Britain’s closest ally, the Americans.

Infused by John Keane’s tense, dizzying music, Mick Jackson’s electrifying direction creates somber tones of mystery and foreboding. He does more than place you on the perilous political high wire with Perkins. He also puts you inside the minds of the loathing plotters who consider Perkins intolerably radical.

“We have to protect the freedoms our ancestors bequeathed to us,” sniffs Sir Percy Browne (wonderfully played by Alan MacNaughtan), the government’s shadowy, thin-lipped, elegantly malevolent intelligence chief, a dangerous extension of those enduring government types who become calcified to their jobs and tradition.

A sort of silky J. Edgar Hoover, Browne and his smarmy, goose-necked assistant have at their disposal vast computerized files on everyone and the latest in electronic bugging and spying technology that allows them to track virtually every move the prime minister makes.

Less fiction than reasonable conjecture, “A Very British Coup” is that endangered television species--something to chew on. The notion that, in various degrees, even democracies include secret governments within governments that operate beyond view and without public mandate is chillingly real, reinforced by such contemporary U.S. history as the Watergate and Iran-Contra scandals.

Adapted by Alan Plater from a Chris Mullin novel, “A Very British Coup” presents a particularly terrifying scenario by seeming to place a head of state in the lethal grip of not only his political enemies but also his own subordinates. The story’s plot twists, dark alleys and hairpin curves all encourage a feeling of uneasiness.

Always slow to back formidable, potentially controversial stories about Washington politics, American television has offered nothing comparable to “A Very British Coup,” which aired on Britain’s bold Channel Four network. Its closest American counterpart this season would be “Favorite Son,” an utterly absurd and repellent NBC clunker about an amoral vice-presidential aspirant and his murderous aide who lusted for power and kinky sex. “Hollywood Wives” had more relevance.

Looming ahead for Hollywood scenarists is Oliver North, with one miniseries about the life and times of Ronald Reagan’s favorite son already in the works. If honest and well executed, it may partially fill a void.

Meanwhile, American viewers can decide for themselves if there are lessons for our own government in “A Very British Coup,” whose conspirators are too enamored of their own opinions to trust the will of the people.