JOHN LE CARRE’S A MURDER OF QUALITY SCREENPLAY - Shooting Script With Revisions and Annotation

Blue card wrappers with letterbox opening; closed tear above this probably removing an additional label previously stapled to the cover. Tape repairs overleaf. Binding secured by two flattened brads. Title page dated December 1st, 1990, Number ‘93’ (probably copy number) to title page written in black ink. The script is made up of three papers stocks dated to October 31, 1990 (plain paper) November 7, 1990 (pink) and November 9, 1990 (pink and occasionally blue). Small stain to foreedge of last few leaves. A staple to p90 where an overlay has probably been removed; annotation to page 91 around the Porter’s part at The Sawley Arms - Smiley’s pub/ hotel in Carne where the movie is set. No institutional copy of this screenplay located.

This television adaptation of John le Carré’s second novel, A Murder of Quality, was filmed by Portobello Productions at Sherborne school between 19 November and 14 December 1990, forty-two years after le Carré had left Sherborne and twenty-nine years after he had written the novel. Denholm Elliott played Smiley and the film was shown on the BBC on 10 April 1991 with the screenplay subsequently published that year. For this most personal of adaptations Le Carre wrote the screenplay himself - what we have here is work in progress for a film that was made in and around Sherborne school and the town. The annotations to the part of the Porter working at the The Sawley Arms (filmed at The Digby in Sherborne) strongly suggest that this version of the screenplay was used by that actor, presently unidentified