Critic Reviews

The Ipcress File isn't your garden variety spy story, nor is it a gloom-and-doom picture of horrible people doing horrible things. It's in the balance between those two extremes that The Ipcress File manages to fit itself — and while it's far from perfect, this is definitely a show that'll have you waiting with bated breath every week for the next thrilling episode.

It’s an intricately plotted series that doesn’t glamorize spy work so much as make clear just how awful it can be. The betrayals will always get you in the end.

One of the adaptation’s pleasures is also its peril: it invites us to compare Joe Cole’s interpretation with Caine’s. Fortunately, Cole is a Harry Palmer for our times. ... It’s not a showy performance, but all the better for that to punch up his rare bons mots.

Cole’s Palmer is fiercely intelligent, occasionally flippant, and liable to push people’s buttons. It’s a fine performance, if a little detached for an everyman hero.

Even if it can’t fully replicate the low-fi charms of the very best Cold War potboilers, its vintage sense of fun ought to be a crowd pleaser. This is about the gentlest, warmest depiction of the Anglo-Russian permafrost you’re likely to encounter.

Whether or not you're a fan of the Michael Caine film, this TV version has both the pedigree and big-budget feel to recommend it. And even if you're familiar with the famous plot, there may just be some surprises in store.

With international conspiracies and brainwashing adding to the intrigue, this File's a keeper. [23 May - 12 Jun 2022, p.7]

The drama is engaging, but fans of the book should prepare for a wildly different story.

It’s interesting to see Lucy Boynton given a role that didn’t really exist in a source material that wasn’t exactly good to female characters, but the lack of urgency sometimes feels like it’s working against everyone involved, sometimes stuck between replicating the style of the ‘60s and appealing to an audience in the 2020s.

This six-part series strays into homage, right down to replicating the moment in which Palmer gropes for his glasses to bring the room into focus. ... Cole homes in on the character’s insolence and aloofness, but doesn’t deliver on charm.