THE IPCRESS FILE: FIRST LOOK AT UPCOMING ITV THRILLER

ITV’s new high-octane thriller, stars Joe Cole, as the iconic spy Harry Palmer alongside Lucy Boynton, BAFTA award winning actor Tom Hollander and Ashley Thomas.

This major new adaptation of Len Deighton’s bestseller features a stellar cast, rich characterisation and a rollercoaster of twists and turns set in the 1960s amid the highly charged atmosphere of the Cold War which rages between West and East.

Harry Palmer is a British army sergeant on the make in Berlin. In this newly partitioned city, a sharp working-class young man with sophisticated tastes can make a lot of money.

Wholesaler, retailer, fixer, smuggler, Harry’s varied interests bring him into contact with everything and everyone – until the law catches up and it all comes crashing to a halt. Harry finds himself sentenced to eight years in a grim military jail in England, all his prospects abruptly torn away.

But his impressive network and efficiency have not gone unnoticed, and a gentleman from British intelligence has a proposal. To avoid prison, Harry Palmer will become a spy. And the case on which he cuts his teeth will be The Ipcress File.

Harry’s links to the man suspected of kidnapping a missing British nuclear scientist result in him being conscripted for a dangerous undercover mission that takes him from the Beatles’ London to the Berlin Wall, from the back alleys of Beirut to the white hot sand of a Nuclear Atoll in the Pacific.

The Ipcress File is a stylish and tense tale of abducted scientists, brainwashing, interdepartmental rivalry, treason, and a possibly unwise romance.