7.8 /10 1 Votes
First episode date 3 September 1959 Language English Genres Espionage, Drama | 7.8/10 IMDb Network BBC Cast Bernard Archard | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Similar Spyforce, Z‑Cars, Dixon of Dock Green, Danger Man | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Spycatcher was a BBC television series, starring Bernard Archard, which ran from 1959 to 1961. It was based on the real-life activities of Dutch counterintelligence officer, Lieutenant-Colonel Oreste Pinto (once called "the greatest living authority on security"), who specialised in the interrogation of suspected spies during World War II and had later published his memoirs under the title Spy Catcher. Each episode showed Pinto (Archard) questioning refugees to England from Nazi-dominated Europe, and eventually exposing them as enemy agents (or, on two occasions, concluding that they were genuine refugees).
In 1960 a board game called Spycatcher inspired by the series was produced by J & L Randall under their Merit trading name.
There was also an earlier BBC Radio series, of 24 Episodes, which covered the same cases in radio-drama form.