Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Emma Appleton, Michael Stuhlbarg, Keeley Hawes, Luke Treadaway, Brandon P. Bell, Matt Lauria, Simon Kunz, Greg McHugh, Albert Welling, Jamie Blackley, Robert Goodale, David Hargreaves, Phoebe Nicholls, Owen Teale, Cara Horgan, Nikhil Parmar, Brendan Patricks, Nick Harris, Peter Pacey, Chloe Harris, Edward Bluemel, Patrick Joseph Byrnes, Joe Corrigall, Rocco Day, Ashley McKinney Taylor, Tim Ahern, Tom Ashley, Jed Aukin, Kieran Buckeridge, Billy Burke, Andrew Byron, Finney Cassidy, Sam Hoare.

You can betray your country and you will be hated and respected in equal measure, some will happily see you swing from a yard arm in full public view, others will do their best to see you held up as a hero, a freedom fighter brave enough to tell the people what they need to hear, that their country that they pacify themselves to believe in, is just as corrupt as another, the virtue we signal to others is nothing more than pan-handling for shadows.

Betray an ideal though and that causes a different reaction, you may well be hated for the actions you took in bringing your reasoning to the attention of others but betray it and you will be despised by all sides of the political doctrine and be seen as disloyal to your own thought. It is perfectly acceptable to change your mind, your view, it shows growth, a willingness to understand other’s points of view, but a principle in which you have repeatedly gone to war for is not up for debate, like glue it must stick to your skin and be painful to your soul to remove. To be in the company of Traitors is to know that you have stood for something, even if it means betraying your country to outside forces.

The Cold War was a period in which we look upon now as a fertile ground for such stories of people caught between the love of their country and the concern of how that country was heading down a different direction to that in which you believed it should take. We look upon those who sold out to the Russians and the Americans during this period with different perspectives, and with good reason. The lies sold by both sides, one seemingly concerned with the peril of Communism and the tide of time against the wealth of the nation being taken out of the hands of those who covet it, and the drama that such revolutions will lead to in other countries should Capitalism become the norm elsewhere.

In the middle of all this stands Britain, a post-war Socialist Government taking power but going to the Americans for money that would see it almost bankrupted in the search for a better tomorrow. The dichotomy of allegiance is palpable but one in which Traitors makes the most of using, showing through the eyes of the impressive Emma Appleton as the headstrong but naive Feef Symonds as she learns that nobody can be trusted in this new world, not even her much-vaunted affections to everything American, and certainly not to her own sense of self.

With tremendous performances by the aforementioned Emma Appleton in her most compelling role to date, Michael Stuhlbarg as Rowe and Keeley Hawes as Priscilla Garrick, Traitors is a persuasive piece of television which does not shy away from lighting a fire underneath the preconditioned thought of its viewers and watching it burn.

The Cold War was as much about hype as it was ideology, fear and promises making its own declarations of peace, how the game has shifted since, how the rules forever change, like a snake making its way through sand, the position of attack is never clear and one in which a traitor can flourish.

Ian D. Hall