Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (TV Mini Series)

Return to the Circus (1979)

Ian Bannen: Jim Prideaux

Photos 

Quotes 

• Control : Listen, Jim, we've got to have codenames for them. D'you remember the nursery rhyme "Tinker, tailor, soldier, sailor"? Finish it.

  Jim Prideaux : "Rich man, poor man, beggar man, thief."

  Control : Percy Alleline, director of Operations: "Tinker".

  Jim Prideaux : "Tinker".

  Control : Bill Haydon, head of Personnel: "Tailor". Roy Bland, head of Iron Curtain Networks: "Soldier". We leave out "Sailor"; too much like "Tailor", could be misheard.

  Jim Prideaux : "Richman"?

  Control : Don't like it, sounds like police work: fraud, Swiss banks stuff. Toby Esterhase, top lamplighter, our exquisite head sleuth...

  Jim Prideaux : "Poorman"?

  [Control chuckles] 

  Control : Yes..."Poorman". And George Smiley, my devoted deputy: "Beggarman".

• Control : We have a rotten apple, Jim, and the maggots are eating up the Circus.

  Jim Prideaux : These people? One of these?

  Control : Why not? Are the British incapable of deception? We've turned members of other outfits: Russians, Poles, Czechs and the odd American.

• Jim Prideaux : [about the car's rear door]  Open it.

  Barak : No, you must sit next to me. It's safer.

  Jim Prideaux : Like hell!

  Barak : Also more democratic.