Tommy and Tuppence both become boarders and proceed in different ways to investigate the various guests staying in the house. Not to be outdone Tuppence, through some crafty manouevering, gets involved too. It was believed that one or both of the enemy activists, one male and one female dubbed “N” and “M”, are operating out of the boarding house. Song Susie” and it had been deduced that “Song Susie” stands for Sans Souci, a boarding house in the sleepy seaside town of Leahampton. Another British agent had left a cryptic message when he was dying: “N or M. After the outbreak of the Second World War Tommy is approached by a friend of their old intelligence chief and asked to investigate possible fifth column activity. I have never read these Agatha Christie stories, but imagine that they are far better in print than this poor half-hearted effort.N or M? continues the story of Tommy and Tuppence Beresford, whose adventures when working for British intelligence during the First World War are related in Christie’s The Secret Adversary (1922). James Fleet brings his absolute dimwittedness of 'Vicar of Dibley' to this series, when he is meant to be a very clever MI5 spymaster. Jessica Raine manages marginally better, but was more convincing as a young midwife with a heart of gold. It could be a spy thriller set against any historic background, rather than the 'Mutually Assured Destruction' (acronym MAD!) of that era in Britain. However, I don't feel that this production evokes the cold war atmosphere in any true sense. The Civil Defence Corps was set up by the UK government in 1949 to actually prepare the citizens for nuclear war, which seemed inevitable. I was there as a child, and I clearly remember 1952. He coined it in a 1945 essay, and as members of NATO and close allies of the USA, the UK was a prime target for Soviet nukes, especially with a great many US air bases on its soil. The term 'Cold War' is attributed to George Orwell, born in British India, but very definitely an English writer. But the UK was very much involved, and fear of nuclear annihilation was something we all lived with on a daily basis.

Maybe this was from a very young person with absolutely no grasp of history, and possibly an American, due to the blatant inability to understand the difference between England and the UK. But it did feature at least one modern electrical fitting! It's curious that one review of last week's item vociferously contended that 'England' was not involved in the Cold War.

I will give it a generous 3/10 for a reasonably authentic depiction of an early 1950s British seaside town, comparatively untouched by war.

Tommy and tuppence n or m