Toby Esterhase (played brilliantly by Bernard Hepton) is currently running a dodgy London antique shop/gallery as Signor Benati. He deals in Degas pieces of doubtful provenance. He quotes George Smiley to George Smiley (Smiley's People, 1982) on retirement. Toby’s advice was: “When it’s over, it’s over. Pull down the shutters, go home! What is this? The last cavalry charge on the Kremlin suddenly? We’re over, George. We got no licence. They don’t want us anymore. Forget it.” The advice is eminently sound. In the novel Smiley finds the people who called him back bone-headedly annoying. The task he is given is to cover things up for the annoying boneheads. Bill Patterson is particularly brilliant as the hyper-annoying Lauder Strickland (He’s captured a certain Boyle-on-the-backside quality that I know all too well.). No one is interested in what happened and why. Smiley does what most of the rest of us do when the circus comes to town; he ignores good advice and plunges in. Of course, Smiley was pretty certain he might win the cold war by coming back. Hardly any of the rest of us have as good an excuse. Instead of coming back to help the bozos out, you can do so many other things, like fix up your house, tend your garden, take up a hobby, finish the taxes on time, or write up all those interesting things you’ve wanted to for years. Leave the circus to the clowns.
Watch this while you can. The BBC is the most vigilant of the international web copyright whiny babies these days.
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