You are in the Special Features section - Patrick McGoohan's The Prisoner Cult TV series and The Portmeirion Hotel

The Prisoner and Portmeirion - Digger visits The Portmeirion Hotel in north Wales, the setting for cult TV classic The Prisoner, and sets-about evaluating the series created by Patrick McGoohan and the architectural and scenic legacy left by Clough Williams-Ellis.

Patrick McGoohan and Clough Wiliams-Ellis

Patrick McGoohan was born in New York of Irish parents in 1928 and they returned to Ireland when he was young. As with many of his contemporaries (Peter O'Toole, Richard Harris, Sean Connery) he moved to London in pursuit of an acting career, which he did with much vigour and variety. By 1963, Patrick McGoohan was the highest-paid actor on British TV. His series Danger Man was a huge success and was sold all over the world (known as Secret Agent in the States.) McGoohan was offered, and refused, the part of James Bond on the grounds it was too violent and too sexist. By 1966 he was bored and disillusioned with his roles. He came up with the idea of a series implicitly based on his Dangerman character, agent John Drake, but with no name, who is whisked away to a secret and mysterious village and subjected to mind games. The series was popular when first aired, although its enigmatic ending proved too frustrating and confusing for most viewers of the day and McGoohan was effectively forced to 'emigrate' back to the States to avoid the furor the programme had caused. TV station switchboards were jammed with irate calls. This series then became a huge cult and spawned appreciation societies and memorabilia in abundance.

Bertram Clough Williams-Ellis, Kt. CBE. MC. LLD. FRIBA. FRTPI. FILA etc. was born at Gayton, Northamptonshire on 28 May 1883, the second son of the Rev. John Clough Williams-Ellis and Hilda Greaves. Educated at Oundle School; Trinity College, Cambridge; the Architectural Association School, London (for three months, 1902-03). In private practice, London and Merioneth 1905-1914 and 1919-1978. Inherited Plas Brondanw, Merioneth in 1908. Best known for Portmeirion (1925 to 1976) built on his own private peninsula on the coast of Snowdonia where he built to show that the development of a naturally beautiful site need not lead to its defilement and that architectural good manners could be good business. His lifelong concern was with Architecture, Landscape Design, the protection of Rural Wales and Conservation generally. At Portmeirion he gave his ideas physical and practical expression.

The Prisoner.

A man, formerly a 'secret agent', resigns his post and books a well-deserved holiday. Whilst packing, he receives unwelcome visitors who arrive in a funeral car and spray a mysterious gas through his door. He awakes to find himself, apparently, in his London home surrounded by his prized possessions. When he looks from his window, however, he sees an unfamiliar village - vaguely foreign-looking. Venturing outside, he discovers that everyone in the village has a number and no name. He is 'Number six'. Nobody can leave the village and everyone is under surveillance and controlled by 'the powers that be'. Number six is told that all they want from him is 'information' to which he stubbornly replies "You won't get it!". The series progresses with a cat-and-mouse game between Number six and his captors, with the honours about even. The series is full of clever and attractive imagery, brilliantly scripted for the most part and was clearly way ahead of its time (although The Avengers did sometimes manage to get close in terms of surreal storylines.) Great writers, directors and actors were queuing-up to be involved...............

Images of Portmeirion and The Portmeirion Hotel today - click on any image for the big picture

It is said that when McGoohan first went to Sir Lew Grade, head of ITC - the large British TV production company with a proposal for the series he spent half an hour describing it. At the end, Lew Grade said he didn't understand a word of it but he would give him the backing for 26 episodes. This shows the standing of McGoohan at the time - it could also show the anecdotal abilities of Sir Lew, as it is doubtful that a man of his experience and sharpness could have entirely misunderstood the concept of the show. In any event, only 17 episodes were made and the last few in an atmosphere of desperation - they could not come up with a satisfactory ending as the series had taken on a life of it's own. This was a great shame given the quality of the first 15 episodes and the originality of the overall concept. A busy McGoohan did the best he could scripting the last two episodes but the series had become so popular & the ending was so odd and unconventional that TV station switchboards all over the UK were jammed with irate calls asking for explanations - letters were written to newspapers complaining that viewers had been short -changed. McGoohan had to quit Britain for safety to escape a witch-hunt.

The ownership of the original concept for this ground-breaking and much-admired series is disputed. Patrick McGoohan, star, writer, director and driving force behind the series is quoted as saying that he got the idea while visiting Portmeirion for an episode of Danger Man.
Alternatively, George Markstein, script editor on the series, has been quoted as having thought of the concept on a train on the way into Waterloo station, London. Markstein can be seen in the opening credits - he is the man behind the desk who receives McGoohan's angry resignation.

Top actors and actresses appeared in the series and top writers provided some great stories. Watching the episodes now they are still as sharp and compulsive as they were then. The overall concept and paraphernalia of the series - penny farthing symbols, mini-moke taxis, 'Rover' balloons and so on all blended to give the whole series a unique feel and style and to link episodes which were actually very different from each other.

Now, some say the series is an adventure, some say it is full of allegory and hidden meanings about modern society making us all prisoners, some say it is a vehicle for McGoohan's eccentricities. Whatever one's view, it has to be accepted that The Prisoner was way ahead of its time, visually stunning (thanks to a large extent to the backdrop of Portmeirion) and still looks good today. That the series ended abruptly at episode 17 when it should have run to 24 is a shame. The conclusion is arguably ambiguous - even a cop-out and silly. But The Prisoner remains a cult TV classic, one that has stood the test of time and one that will be viewed, admired, mimicked and talked about for a long time.

Please see our interviews with two of the stars of The Prisoner, actresses Jane Merrow and Annette Andre for an insight into their involvement with the series and McGoohan. Click on their images below:

Jane Merrow and Annette Andre
who star in episodes The Schizoid Man
and It's Your Funeral

Portmeirion and The Portmeirion Hotel.

This was my first visit to Portmeirion. Strange that, for someone who loves The Prisoner so much. I arrived much as Patrick McGoohan had in an early sixties episode of Danger Man, in a sports car with the top down. The difference was he looked cool and I ......... well, I was me! I was guided down the steep winding road to my room by a man in a van whose job seemed to be to do just that. Tourists had to make way for us as we meandered through the village and it was hard for me to concentrate on the driving and take in my first exposure to the amazing scenery at the same time.

Often places look more impressive and grander on TV or film but, unusually, in the case of 'The Village' seeing the real thing just serves to impress more. That a place of such beauty and fantasy could exist and flourish amongst the relatively normal surroundings of the Welsh coast. Each building having its place in the design, the planting lending a softness to the architecture, every aspect, angle and perspective affording magnificent views. Clough Williams-Ellis, the man whose inspiration and vision created this place, had good reason to be pleased with his achievements. Although Portmeirion didn't evolve, it was artificially created in that sense, it nevertheless is a masterpiece of the merging of architectural styles, often in miniature, and is more than a tourist trap - it's a fully functional hotel with a great restaurant, recently re-designed by sixties style guru Terence Conran, the man who created the Habitat chain of stores.

It's a folly on a grand scale and one that we can all share in, not some mock tower for some Lord to privately amuse himself with. An outstanding place of beauty and a national treasure accessible to the public and we owe a great debt of gratitude to Clough Williams-Ellis for his foresight, enthusiasm and effort in creating this wonderful and idyllic place. And for allegedly inspiring such a classic TV series.