The mystery of The Prisoner’s No 6 badge from the cult TV series solved?

(Photo from The Prisoner episode 4: Free For All)

About a month ago, Malcolm Hardee Comedy Award designer John Ward got in touch with me about cult TV series The Prisoner. He thought he might have the original ‘No 6’ badge which star Patrick McGoohan wore in the series. I wrote a blog about it.

Rick Davy of The Unmutual Prisoner and Portmeirion Website has sent this reply which, I think, is just as interesting as the original blog…

John Ward wearing The Prisoner’s No 6 badge from MGM

Rick writes:

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I found the blog piece delightful and fascinating. What a story, and what a wonderful set of items to now own! Not heard of MGM sending actual artefacts before. Photos yes, artefacts no!

I personally think this is unlikely to be an original badge, and agree with one of your conclusions that this may have been something reproduced and sent to various folk who wrote to Patrick McGoohan / MGM. The reasons I believe it may not be genuine are as follows (and I’m not saying this to annoy or depress, but to help John Ward build an overall picture for these wonderful items):

a) Number Six only wore/used his badge for around 5 seconds, in a scene from the episode Arrival, where he is handed the badge outside of the Hospital in The Village (in reality, Castell Daedraeth in Portmeirion). He immediately tears off the badge and tosses it into a Village taxi. At no other point in the episode, or series, does he wear the badge (you may recall he defiantly states “I am Not a Number!” at the start of each episode). Because of this, the badge will not have been used in any beach scenes and therefore any ‘sand’ is likely to be coincidental.

b) The series’ propsman Mickey O’Toole, who was in charge of creating and organising the badges, when interviewed about the series, spoke at length regarding the re-use of the Number 6 badge. As extras from the series who appeared in Portmeirion when they shot the series from September 1966 were keeping their own numbered badges as souvenirs, the production crew found themselves short of numbered badges, so re-used the Number 6 badge by adding other digits, so there are 3 different Number 66 background characters in the first episode Arrival, for example, produced by simply stenciling another ‘6’ onto the existing ‘6’. Therefore, the original ‘6’ badge probably didn’t last beyond those first two weeks of filming, as it was modified to become a different number.

However, that’s not to say that other Number Six badges were created and not used – such items were not catalogued, so you’d be justified in arguing that other 6 badges could have been produced. However, filming and production on the series was completed in February 1968 and, as such, it’s highly unlikely that any aspect of the series’ production remained at the studio for 12+ months after that. 

By mid-1968 the props were broken up (with a few taken home by members of the production crew earlier that year (See https://www.theunmutual.co.uk/propscostumes.htm for some examples) and the costume store at MGM moved to nearby ABPC Studios (now known as Elstree Film Studios) for use in other series. By the time your letter was sent from MGM in 1969, it’s therefore incredibly unlikely that any aspect of the series remained at MGM to be mailed to you as it had all moved a year or so before. 

But there certainly cannot be any proof that this is NOT an original 6 badge used in production, as the design certainly 100% matches those used in the finished episodes.

Does John Ward have THE No 6 badge from cult TV series “The Prisoner”…??

Malcolm Hardee Comedy Award designer John Ward has got in touch with me about the cult TV series The Prisoner, which starred Patrick McGoohan…

John Ward wrote:

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Patrick McGoohan made The Prisoner down the road from you at MGM Borehamwood in 1966-1967.

Patrick McGoohan, the Prisoner badge, the MGM envelope

I wrote to him when it was screened to say I thought the series was a cracker and a few weeks later a signed photo plus a Number 6 penny farthing badge came in the post…

Could this be THE badge that was used in the show? – Or just one of them? 

I suspect that a few were made in case of cock-ups during filming – or to send out to fans. But, on the back of the badge I was sent – in the pin attachment – are visible grains of sand.

Some of the location stuff was filmed along the beach area at Portmeirion in Wales.

Years ago I did try to find out how many badges were made, but no joy.

In the 1980s, I ‘loaned’ my badge to the Six of One fan club for a Channel 4 programme Six Into One – The Prisoner File. I saw an article in the TV Times asking for anybody with any memories relating the original showing – 1967-1968.

So I wrote in.

Next thing I knew I had a ‘highly educated’ man calling me on the phone to say how wonderful it was that I had this ‘memento’ from the show.

The more he asked, the more he seemed to be drooling over it.

Could I send it, together with the envelope with the MGM logo, by recorded delivery, to him?

I duly did his bidding and got back a pile of their Six of One promo stuff about membership etc… and then… nothing, really.

I was never told when the programme was going out. By chance, I spotted it in the telly listings. 

And then it took so much hassle getting it back from them! 

I got the impression they thought I was going to give it them. 

They eventually succumbed to sending the badge back to me in a registered envelope after loads of phone calls from me to them. 

However…

MGM envelope franked

…the MGM envelope they had requested “to prove its authenticity” that I had sent together with the badge was not there – So back to the phone I went and told him in no uncertain terms I was not best pleased.

The MGM envelope appeared about a week later in a Royal Mail Registered envelope, with no apology or anything else, hence I have no time for the Six of One clique in any shape or form.

And, despite all this aggro the badge was not actually used in any context in the programme.

What is interesting is I cannot find any reference to the badge I have. 

Okay, there are loads of shit copies on eBay, yes – But no mention of anybody saying they have the original badge at all.

Years ago our local newspaper – the Northants Evening Telegraph – ran an article on it but no joy. One idiot said he had bought ‘the badge’ while on holiday and he paid 50p for it in… well… in Margate..

He came round to see me, but it was a simple button type badge with a pin about the size of a 50 pence piece.

I may well take my badge along to an Antiques Roadshow at some point as I think, with the original MGM logo envelope, it has provenance, as they say.

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(There is an interesting reply to this blog HERE)

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The entire 50-minute opening episode of The Prisoner is currently available to view on YouTube… speeded-up so it lasts just 2 mins 33 secs…

…and there is 8mm film footage of the first episode being shot at Portmeirion…

Lew Grade, Patrick McGoohan and bizarre cult TV series “The Prisoner”

Booth tried to unmask McGoohan

In this blog recently, I have been slagging-off ITV’s misbegotten attempted revival of Sunday Night at The London Palladium. I have a feeling it was made by people attempting to create a populist show based on some highly-researched viewer ‘demographic’ and that the producers are making a programme which they would not themselves watch – a virtual definition of dumbing down shows and looking down on audiences.

The original Sunday Night at The London Palladium was made by ATV under its mega showman boss Lew Grade. Lew was seen as Mr Downmarket Populist Entertainment Showbiz but, in fact, opera and ballet and all sorts of odd stuff would crop up amid the jugglers and dancing showgirls on Sunday Night at The London Palladium.

This came to mind because, last night, the admirably quirky Sohemian Society had a meeting about Patrick McGoohan and his cult series The Prisoner.

The speaker was Rupert Booth, who was plugging his 2011 book Not a Number: Patrick McGoohan, a Life but who, in an admirable demonstration of individuality, did not bring any copies to sell.

Lew Grade commissioned The Prisoner for ATV/ITV through his ITC Films company.

Lew Grade with Fozzy from his ATV series The Muppet Show

“I think it’s a misconception that Lew Grade was simply Mr Entertainment,” said Rupert Booth last night. “He made his money out of shows like Sunday Night at The London Palladium, but he would put an awful lot of money into pet projects, plays, operas – I think ATV broadcast the first colour live opera in Britain. He made Jesus of Nazareth. He always said: I should do something about the Bible; I’m Jewish!

“When The Prisoner was first pitched to him, with McGoohan waving his arms about and showing pictures of Portmeirion, Lew Grade ended up saying: I have no idea what you’re talking about, but here’s the money. Go away and make it. That may seem incredibly brave but, in a way, it wasn’t: McGoohan was a very bankable star. He had been Danger Man (another ITC/ATV series) and was, I think, at that point the highest-paid actor on British television. I don’t think Lew Grade saw Fall Out (The Prisoners’ final controversial episode) coming. But I don’t think Patrick McGoohan saw Fall Out coming.”

The way McGoohan remembered getting the OK from Lew Grade for The Prisoner was: “He got up, puffed on his cigar, marched around a little bit, then turned and said: Pat, you know, it’s so crazy it might work.”

There is a YouTube clip in which McGoohan talks about Grade.

In the audience at the Sohemian Society last night was someone who had worked at ATV at that time (but not on The Prisoner).

“You could argue,” he said, “that there can sometimes be too much creative freedom. I was told The Prisoner was a chaotic programme to work on, particularly towards the end. The people who worked on the last episode said they didn’t know what was happening from one day to the next. There was no schedule, there were no scripts, no lines, it was chaos. It’s a very interesting way to make a television programme, but it’s probably not the best way.”

“Well,” said Rupert Booth, “to my mind, The Prisoner was the absolute finishing of him as McGoohan: The TV Star. It was a bit self-destructive. This is when he’s getting through about two bottles of whiskey and day and he’s been through, I think, his third nervous breakdown. He was taking so much of it on his own shoulders and taking it so seriously and would not compromise ever.”

According to Lew Grade, at the time The Prisoner was in production, the President of CBS asked him: “Do you have problems with Patrick McGoohan?” Lew told him: “I never have any problem at all with Patrick McGoohan. He’s wonderful”… “Well how do you do it?” asked the CBS President. Lew replied: “I always give in to what he wants.”

Patrick McGoohan in The Prisoner‘s opening title sequence

“There were stories,” Rupert Booth said last night, “that McGoohan would not even have the word ‘television’ said on set. the word ‘film’ had to be used, because he thought people working on a television programme would potentially compromise their standards. It’s indicative, I think, of how much he was putting into it. Most of the stories about the filming of Fall Out are that it was either terrible chaos or glorious chaos, depending on what your role in it was. If you were an actor and were able to fall over chairs and dance around and sing Dry Bones: magnificent! If had to try to light and follow that with a camera: slightly more irritating. So, out of the chaos…”

After The Prisoner ended, McGoohan went to Lew Grade with other ideas.

“There’s one story which may be apocryphal,” said Rupert Booth, “that McGoohan took some ideas all nicely typed-up into Lew Grade and Lew basically said: No. Sorry. You’ve lost it. You’re too much of a risk and McGoohan absolutely spat the dummy out, stood on the table, kicked all the stuff off and stormed out and effectively destroyed his TV career in this country. Which (if true) was stupid and ungrateful, because Lew Grade had been tremendous to him. He had given him an awful lot of money. He had entrusted him. I think McGoohan was very unfair to Lew Grade in that way. It does seem from reports of that era that McGoohan was pissed off his face and spitting his dummy out and throwing all the toys out of his pram if he didn’t get his own way.”

According to Patrick McGoohan, talking about Lew Grade years later: “from the very moment he said Go (on production of The Prisoner) and shook my hand – we never had a contract – he never interfered in anything that I did. Never bothered me. It was marvellous. I can’t conceive of anybody else in the world, then or now, giving me that amount of freedom with a subject which, in many respects, I suppose you might say was outrageous. He has an instinct.”

Perhaps ITV could do with that now. People who take decisions – and responsibility – on instinct not on research figures from uncreative people. I oft quote the William Goldman sentence from his book Adventures in The Screen Trade: “Nobody knows anything.”

It means that creating TV programmes (and films) is an art involving gut instinct, not a science where you create ‘sure-fire winners’ from research intended to cover your ass if the show or the film fails.

There are some clips from Fall Out, the final episode of The Prisoner, on YouTube.