An Englishman Abroad

TV Movie
1983
1h 1m

IMDb RATING

YOUR RATING

The actress Coral Browne travels to Moscow and meets a mysterious Englishman. It turns out that he's the notorious spy Guy Burgess.The actress Coral Browne travels to Moscow and meets a mysterious Englishman. It turns out that he's the notorious spy Guy Burgess.The actress Coral Browne travels to Moscow and meets a mysterious Englishman. It turns out that he's the notorious spy Guy Burgess.

See production info at IMDbPro

IMDb RATING

7.5/10

649

YOUR RATING

See production info at IMDbPro

Won 7 BAFTA Awards
- 12 wins & 3 nominations total

User reviews12

Featured review

8/10

A quiet, gentle triumph

Very dry wit joins with a rueful sadness in the 1 hour based-on-truth drama of English traitor in exile Guy Burgess (the wonderful Alan Bates) striking up a brief friendship with actress Coral Browne (playing herself).

Burgess meets Browne when goes to see a cultural exchange production of Hamlet, in 1958, wanders backstage, and throws up in her dressing room sink. In the midst the two find a connection, and strike up an acquaintance.

Full of trenchant observations on both Soviet and British life,, what it means to miss one's homeland, Perhaps the comic absurdity of the two dolts who work at the British embassy is a bit overstated, but generally this is full of beautifully observed moments, a quiet, gentle triumph.

Trivia
At the same time in Moscow, Guy Burgess also met with Sir Michael Redgrave, who was playing Hamlet, and whom he had known at Cambridge University. A memo from January 9, 1959, declassified in 2014, described their going to a party together and to Burgess' flat, showing that Redgrave had been under surveillance by MI5 for his alleged Communist sympathies for many years.

Goofs
When Coral, in Burgess' flat, says 'The theatre's in a dreadful state', her lips are out of sync.

Quotes
Coral: I wouldn't care, but it's only the interval. If you want to come round and be sick you might at least save it for the end of the performance.