Welcome to The Tally Ho, a podcast about the classic TV series The Prisoner.
In this episode we look at Many Happy Returns, the seventh episode of The Prisoner. Number 6 (Patrick McGoohan) awakes to find The Village completely deserted. Taking to sea in a makeshift raft he begins the perilous journey back to London, where he finds his home – and Lotus – occupied by the eccentric Mrs Butterworth (Georgina Cookson). But from strangers to old, old friends, who can he really trust?
Join us as we discuss this daring episode of television that doesn’t need dialogue to tell a cracking story. We also take some tangents into real-life spy villages, double-casting confusions, and props lost at sea. We are then joined once again by Nick Briggs from Big Finish Productions who talks about their wonderful audiodramas based on The Prisoner, including an adaptation of this very episode, I Met a Man Today.
Direct download: The Tally Ho – Episode 7: Many Happy Returns
You can find more information, information on some of the tangents we go on below:
The holiday village run by spies – the BBC article on the diving resort by the Red Sea that disguised covert operations for many years
The Prisoner video game for Apple 2 – Wikipedia article on the text-based The Prisoner game from 1980
The Revenge by Andrew Sachs – BBC Genome entry on the 1978 radio play without dialogue, as mentioned by Nick
NICK BRIGGS is an actor, writer, director and co-founder of Big Finish Productions, which is known for its acclaimed audio productions in the universes of Doctor Who, Blake’s 7, The Avengers and more recently, The Prisoner. He has led the team that has reimagined The Prisoner as an audiodrama series, with the third series having just been announced. This outstanding collection includes new adaptations and riffs on episodes of the TV series, alongside original stories perfectly in keeping with The Prisoner mythology. Their collection of Prisoner audiodramas can be found here and include a host of great bonus materials when purchased direct from Big Finish. Find out more about Nick on his website. He’s also the voice of the Daleks on Doctor Who! Our previous interview with Nick and sound designer Iain Meadows about the Big Finish series can be heard on our site here.
We also get a news round-up from Rick Davy of The Unmutual on what’s happening in the world of The Prisoner. More details about the Patrick McGoohan celebration event at Elstree, mentioned by Rick, and organised by The Unmutual Website and Quoit Media can can found here.
To follow our podcast, there are several places to find The Tally Ho. Episodes will be available through our main stream – called Time for Cakes and Ale – from all the usual places including iTunes, Pippa, Stitcher, TuneIn, Android, or directly via our RSS feed 
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You can find all of our 2018 Tally Ho episodes, beginning with Arrival, right here! The page is updated with each new edition of the podcast.
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Be seeing you!
The Tally Ho episodes will run concurrently with our regular Time for Cakes and Ale ones and are available via our main podcast feed. Find out more here.
Today I was reading an article about the creation of a game based on a Harlan Ellison story, and in the course of it, one of the interview subjects, David Mullich, mentions he created a Prisoner videogame, which I can only assume is the one mentioned in this podcast. I thought you’d like to see the article, and maybe reach out to them:
https://kotaku.com/how-harlan-ellison-s-most-famous-short-story-became-an-1827327887
Thanks Jack. A really interesting article! Did you see the introductions that Harlan Ellison recorded for a broadcast of The Prisoner on SciFi?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0NmE4SLAE0Y
It would be great to speak to David about the genesis of The Prisoner game…
I hadn’t seen those intros, but I do remember him being a fixture on the network during its early years. I recall, he had his own show just for ranting–haha.
Definitely my favorite episode of The Prisoner.
I love that he is even more isolated once the Village is abandoned. It has a very Quiet Earth vibe to it.
One of our favourites too! Hope you are enjoying the podcast.