I am liking this but it is not in the same league as any of the BBC Le Carre adaptions.
But watching episode 4 and call me picky but I was 14/15 when this is set and I don't reckon that people used the expression "RENT BOY" or "BACKUP" until a lot more recently
A cursory check of The Times shows "rent boy" being used in the appropriate context in a 1970 film review, but then it doesn't appear again in the paper until 1983. In the context of MI5 dealings with the grittier side of life in 1971, it's probably not anchronistic. On the other hand, the two mentions of "British Aerospace" certainly were, because the company didn't exist until the late-1970s.
shareThere was also a reference to 'Beijing' in episode 3 - I'm pretty sure it would have been called 'Peking' in the 1970s.
shareIt was always called Peking until fairly recently,western media started to use the Chinese system of Chinese words.
As for the other words RENT BOY might have been mentioned in the Times in the 1970s as the other post mentions but I don't recall it being used much until the 1980s when films like FRUIT MACHINE and newspaperr reports of politician's sex scandals used the word.
I don't claim to be an expert on this stuff but I am fairly old so remember words becoming popular and then fading away again.
It is still Peking as far as I am concerned. Just as Istanbul is Constantinople....
"Rent boy" may have been used in an American film in 1970, but I doubt it was used in the UK in 1972.
I think you're being very picky, and you don't have anything to back up your claims.
shareI don't have anything to back up my views except the fact that I was 12 in 1972 and don't recall using words that I first heard in the 1980s or later.
I just watched this again on dvd and somebody is described as being across everything,as in across the whole range of a business,people did not speak like that in the 1970s.
You might think it does not matter but elsewhere in interviews with the cast and writers and director they praise themselves for getting historical details and the look of the thing correct.
But the writer makes a fool of himself when he says that the Winter Of Discontent was in 1972 when it was winter 1978/1979.
Several people mention that people being scared by watching public information films about atomic destruction but nobody saw these films until the early 1980s when clips of them were shown in the drama THREADS and in documentaries.
The entire films were not shown in 1972,and indeed I reckon they were made in the early 1980s,judging by the look of them and the style of music.
But I liked the drama,although I hated one character in particular,although to be fair he is shown as being good at his job.