POSTCARDS

Trapped in The Village

ou are a prisoner in your village and go out for exercise, but shopping facilities are limited and you get into trouble with the authorities if you roam too far from its boundaries. Sounds familiar? That was the premise of , first screened on TV in 1967-68, following on from the popular which starred Patrick McGoohan. The Irish-American actor had previously turned down the role of James Bond, maybe because for the second series of he had insisted on “no kissing”, something of a must-have for Bond. Instead, with George Markstein, he created , in which his character resigns from the secret service only to find it is a job for life and that he has been abducted unconscious to The Village, a surreal place where everybody is only known by a number.