Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (George Smiley series)(Audio Theater Dramatization) (Karla Trilogy)

[A BBC Radio 4 Full Cast Dramatization starring Simon Russell Beale]

This is the first book in John le Carre's Karla trilogy. This BBC Radio full-cast dramatization stars the award-winning Simon Russell Beale as Smiley, and has a star cast which includes Anna Chancellor, Alex Jennings, Kenneth Cranham and Bill Paterson. This epic dramatization brilliantly depicts the complicated moral dilemmas of those who practice postwar espionage and illuminates the murky corners of le Carre's classic spy thriller.

George Smiley is one of the most brilliantly realized characters in British fiction. Bespectacled, tubby, eternally middle-aged and deceptively ordinary, he has a mind like a steel trap and is said to possess ''the cunning of Satan and the conscience of a virgin.'' Smiley, wrestling with retirement and disillusionment, is summoned to a secret meeting with a member of the Cabinet Office. Evidence has emerged that the Circus has been infiltrated at the highest level by a Russian agent. ''Find the mole, George. Clean the stables. Do whatever is necessary.'' Reluctantly Smiley agrees, and so embarks on a dark journey into his past - a past filled with love, duplicity and betrayal.