The State Within
GenrePolitical thriller
CreatorLizzie Mickery
Daniel Percival
DirectorMichael Offer
Daniel Percival
MusicJennie Muskett
Starring
CountryUnited Kingdom
LanguageEnglish
Num series1
Num episodes6
Executive producerKathryn Mitchell
Jessica Pope
ProducerGrainne Marmion
Patrick Cassavetti
CinematographyDavid Perrault
EditorNick McPhee
David Head
Runtime60 minutes
CompanyBBC Films
NetworkBBC One
BBC America
First aired2 November 2006
Last aired7 December 2006

The State Within is a six-part[1] British television political thriller series, written and created by Lizzie Mickery and Daniel Percival, that was broadcast on BBC One in the United Kingdom from Thursday, 2 November 2006.[2] The series, directed by Percival and Michael Offer and produced by Grainne Marmion, is a joint production between BBC Films and BBC America that follows Sir Mark Brydon (Jason Isaacs), the British Ambassador to Washington, who is caught in the centre of a political conspiracy threatening to depose Western governments. As such, he must prevent a war, all whilst facing his own personal dilemmas.

On 22 January 2007, the series was released on DVD in the United Kingdom.[3] In the United States, the series premiered during Presidents Day weekend as a three-part miniseries, concluding on 24 February 2007. After being repeated on BBC Four in June 2007 as part of the channel's Conspiracy U.S.A. week of programming,[4] the series subsequently released on Netflix worldwide, where it was edited down into seven 50-minute episodes.[5] The series was subsequently nominated for two Golden Globe Awards in the categories Best Mini-Series or Motion Picture Made for Television and Best Actor - Miniseries or Television Film.

Plot

Lynne Warner (Sharon Gless) is the United States Secretary of Defense, Nicholas Brocklehurst (Ben Daniels) is nominally the British Counsellor External Affairs, but is a Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) agent assigned to embassy duty, and James Sinclair (Alex Jennings) is the former British ambassador to the fictional former Soviet republic of Tyrgyzstan (cf. Kyrgyzstan). This character resembles Craig Murray, the British ambassador who exposed British and American complicity in torture and human rights abuses in Uzbekistan.[6]

Cast

Main cast

Supporting cast

  • Emma Campbell as Sally Davis
  • Rahnuma Panthaky as Nasreen Qureshi
  • Briony Glassco as Jennifer Grimes
  • Louca Tassone as Azzam Sinclair
  • Roman Podhora as Vernon Burchill
  • Michael Rhoades as Gary Pritchard
  • Ron Lea as Carl Garcia
  • Patrick Garrow as Brad Godovsky
  • David Eisner as Sam Levinson
  • Rory O’Shea as news anchor

References

  1. ^ "The State Within Episode Guide". bbc.co.uk. Retrieved 25 October 2013.
  2. ^ "Release details for The State Within". Internet Movie Database. Retrieved 10 November 2010.
  3. ^ "The State Within DVD Review". DVDTalk. Retrieved 25 October 2013.
  4. ^ "The State Within - Episodes". BBC.
  5. ^ "The State Within". Netflix. Retrieved 25 October 2013.
  6. ^ Paton Walsh, Nick (15 July 2004). "The Envoy who said too much". The Guardian. Retrieved 18 July 2008.