Colditz (TV Series) Tweedledum (1972) User Reviews

Possibly The Best Ever Episode

[threeleggedant · 10/10 · 11 June 2020]

I was only 7 years old when this episode was aired. This was a time there there were only three TV channels in the UK, and it was a prime-time show.

This was an extremely powerful episode. I've only now just seen it (2020) and the final scenes made me tearful - something that didn't happen in 1972.

I figure that 20-25% of the population actually saw this episode when first aired. I'm now 55 and this episode still resonates (actually it is pretty much the only episode that I remember clearly from 48 years ago - this makes me feel very old!). My mother was suffering from mental health issues at the time but I don't think they manifested themselves until just after this, so it was quite an introduction to mental health issues for prime-time audiences at the time (when there were only three channels).

"Simple, obvious psychosis."

[ShadeGrenade · 10/10 · 27 July 2008]

Their escape attempts having failed, the Colditz P.O.W.'s plan to dig a tunnel, but Wing Commander George Marsh ( Michael Bryant ) has another idea - repatriation.

If he can convince the Germans he has become schizophrenic, he will be sent home. Luckily, Marsh used to work in a mental hospital and knows exactly what sort of behaviour is required of him. Colonel Preston warns him of the dangers involved, but he goes ahead regardless.

With only a handful of P.O.W.'s in on Marsh's plan, they watch with bafflement as he effects a brilliant impersonation of a man whose mental health is in serious decline. He plays the same gramophone record over and over again, walks out of the castle when the doors are opened to admit a new arrival, talks to himself, plays with a toy plane and even urinates in public. He becomes a figure of fun, earning himself the unflattering nickname 'Tweedledum'. But how far is Marsh prepared to go in order to win his freedom?

Written by John Brason, 'Tweedledum' is a superb piece of drama which could easily have served as a one-off play. The regulars are around, but its Michael Bryant's tour-de-force performance as the seemingly deranged 'Marsh' which takes centre stage. He is simply magnificent. Comedy actor Geoffrey Palmer plays 'Doc', one of the few prisoners to know what Marsh is up to.

One scene was inspired by a famous moment in 'The Colditz Story' film. As the P.O.W.'s exercise in the grounds, one man executes a daring acrobatic leap over the fence and runs for his life.

One of the great things about this series was that the Germans were not portrayed as the heel-clicking 'we are the masters now' stereotypes so beloved of countless war movies. Bernard Hepton's Kommandant, for example, is a man doing a job, not a sadist. One of the major characters in this story is a sympathetic German, played by Berrnard Kay.

I don't normally cry easily but I defy anyone not to be moved at the end as Marsh is finally led to the car that will take him away from the castle. His freedom has been earned at a terrible cost.

When in 1986 the B.B.C. screened a retrospective of archive programmes, this was the episode of 'Colditz' they selected.

Michael Bryant and Bernard Kay absolutely brilliant

[barry-180 · 9 November 2010]

I watched on the Yesterday Channel the "Tweedledum" episode of Colditz. I had not seen it since 1972 and I was literally spellbound for an hour by the absolutely brilliant acting of Michael Bryant as the Wing Commander Marsh who "feigns" insanity to be repatriated from Colditz and Bernard Kay as a German corporal who is picked by the security officer to find out if Marsh is deceiving the Germans. The Corporal has been chosen because he has an insane brother who he was very close to.At first the corporal detests Marsh because he believes him to be acting, and in fact he is.But as time goes by Marsh does become insane and the corporal realizes this. There is a scene where Marsh is holding on to the corporal and both are crying that is one of the greatest scenes in TV drama, I have ever seen,in fact any kind of drama.At the end when Marsh is about to leave Colditz, when it is obvious that he is mad,he begs to stay there with the corporal."This my home".Some of the few other prisoners who were on to the "escape" think that this last scene was Marsh's tour de force of "acting" but the prisoners doctor played by Geoffrey Parmer has had reservations for a long time and deep down inside knows that Marsh has gone insane.The only caveat I would make about this great play was right at the end we hear of a letter from England saying that there is no hope of a recovery for Wing Commander Marsh.Maybe in 1972 I did not realize it but on reflection last night after watching I thought that surely to stop the Germans expecting that it was an escape ,thats the kind of letter which would be sent.