An abandoned room at Portmeirion Village 1982. “The Prisoner” starring Patrick McGoohan was filmed there and it had a profound effect on me as a very young boy when it was transmitted in 1968. It was exciting of course and the high tech of the time was a draw but it was the concepts and meaning behind the surface that attracted me. No 6 -McGoohans character in the series was not the traditional hero type figure, the series played with the idea of the individual and society. “Who is number 1?” – “You are number 6!” it was flagged at the start of evey episode!
Visiting Portmerion on perhaps my last family holiday in 1982 I was really pleased when I climbed a staircase (I wasnt meant to climb) and found this scene through the glass of the door. 24/7 monitoring of the prisoner was central to the series and this speaker on the cabinet and pens strewn on the floor looked like a low tech version of that.
In retrospect I can see how No 6 could be described as a hero figure by Ayn Rand, certainly problematic. Thankfully in 1973 I was similarly thunderstruck by a very different man: Jacob Bronowski in his 13 part documentary “The Ascent of Man” which contains some of the most emotionaly powerful and humanistic moments on TV.