The Dog it was that Died
Encyclopedia
The Dog It Was That Died is a play by the British
playwright Tom Stoppard
.
Written for BBC Radio
in 1982, it concerns the dilemma faced by a spy over whom he actually works for. The play was also adapted for television by Stoppard, and broadcast in 1988.
agency of the British Government. As the play begins, he is in the process of committing suicide by jumping off Waterloo Bridge
into the Thames. However, the attempt goes wrong when he falls not into the water but onto a passing barge, breaking his legs and killing a dog which was on the deck at the time.
Over the course of the play, the reasons for this emerge. Some years ago, Purvis was approached by a Soviet spy named Rashnikov, who asked him to work as a double agent. Purvis reported this to his British superiors, who told him to pretend to work as a Soviet double agent
whilst really working for them. However, Purvis also recalls that Rashnikov had told him to tell his British masters that he was being recruited, effectively setting up a double bluff ahead of time. Purvis also told this to the British - but is worried that when he did so, it was again because Rashnikov told him to do so. The upshot is that the British and the Russians have been using Purvis to shuttle false information between each other; but in order to allay the other side's suspicions, each has been giving real information to the other as well.
The result of this is that Purvis is no longer sure who his employer is - is he really working for the Russians or the British? Purvis's manager Giles Blair visits Purvis at Clifftops, a rest home on the Norfolk
coast which is maintained by the agency for its staff. In the process of finding Purvis, Blair encounters not one but two inmates, both of whom pose as officials. The result is that when he finally meets the real administrator, Doctor Seddon, he is highly suspicious, and when Seddon tries to interest him in the guano
he has found from a colony of bats in the bell tower (Blair: Bats? In the Belfry?! Seddon: Mmm. Had 'em for years and never realised..), he makes hasty excuses and runs away, bumping into Purvis as he does so.
They discuss Purvis's problem, and Blair, in the course of attempting to make Purvis feel better, inadvertently shows him that his entire life has been pointless. Purvis is actually greatly calmed by this, and he and Blair part on good terms. The next scene opens at Purvis's memorial service - he has succeeded in committing suicide by rolling his wheelchair off a cliff at the rest home. Blair ponders: 'One asks oneself, with the benefit of hindsight, was Clifftops the ideal place to send someone with a tendency to fling themselves from a great height to a watery grave? Of course at the time one didn't realise it was a tendency...'
In the closing scene, the whole structure is explained by the agency's unnamed chief, although even this explanation remains dizzyingly complex. The chief sums up by saying 'Purvis was acting as a genuine Russian spy in order to preserve his cover as a bogus Russian spy. In other words, if Purvis's mother had been kicked by a donkey, things would be very much as they are. If I were Purvis I'd drown myself.'
In a second suicide note delivered to Blair after his memorial service, Purvis explains that whatever side he was really on, at the end he decided he felt more sympathy for the British side and is almost convinced that they were in fact his employers. He concludes: 'I hope I'm right. Although I would settle for knowing that I'm wrong'. He also adds that he has learned that Rashnikov was recalled to the Soviet Union on suspicion of having been duped by the British. 'Rashnikov said there was a perfectly good reason why this should have been the impression given; but unfortunately he died of a brainstorm while trying to work it out. You could say that the same thing happened to me.'
Blair represents the quintessential upper-class English bureaucrat; there is nothing of the glamour of James Bond
about him. Despite being perhaps the central character of the play - certainly he has the most lines - he remains a somewhat ineffectual figure, happy to allow events to follow their course. Blair collects clocks - his house is full of them - and is also constructing a folly in the grounds of his house.
Rupert Purvis, a tortured soul. Purvis is highly principled, which makes it all the more upsetting for him when he can't recall exactly what those principles are.
Hogbin, described by Blair as a 'policeman' but actually another spy, Hogbin is assigned to investigate the circumstances of Purvis's suicide attempt, and in particular a letter he posted to Blair before his first attempt. Hogbin is the polar opposite of Blair - doggedly determined, prone to panic and seeing conspiracies at every turn.
Pamela Blair, wife of Giles. She runs a donkey
sanctuary, occasionally appropriating her husband's study as an operating theatre for her injured charges. She is having an affair with Blair's boss; a fact about which both she and Blair are entirely open and unconcerned.
's work.
The play takes place against a background of Cold War paranoia, and at the time of its first production it was quite believable that such complex shenanigans could take place. It is full of Stoppard's usual verbal pyrotechnics, particularly in those scenes where the full details of Purvis's career are being explored.
The characters of Blair and Purvis are contrasted skillfully - one the benignly complacent bureaucrat, the other a deeply principled fighter for his beliefs. There is also a class contrast between Blair and Hogbin; whilst the agencies involved are never specifically stated, their respective characters conform exactly to the period's stereotypes of MI6 and MI5
officers, as Blair is very much the upper-class and somewhat louche eccentric
and Hogbin the conscientious if unimaginative middle-class moralist. However, in the end Blair proves to be more in control of the situation than Hogbin.
The play also explores eccentricity
in general in a fond way. Virtually all the characters in it have a pronounced eccentricity of some kind: Blair's clocks and his folly; his wife's donkey sanctuary and casual affair with her husband's superior; the chief's regular smoking of opium
, the obsession with rare cheese of the vicar who carries out Purvis's memorial, and Seddon's fascination with guano. Additionally, Blair and Purvis's former boss 'Jell' apparently used to wear hunting pink to the office. Purvis's second suicide note makes this delight in the gentle eccentricities of his countrymen explicit, describing English eccentricity as 'a curious bloom, which here at Clifftops only appears in its overblown variety.'
The title of the play comes from Oliver Goldsmith
's poem An Elegy on the death of a mad dog which ends:
In some ways Purvis may be seen as the mad dog of the poem.
Stoppard may have borrowed the idea to use this quotation from British novelist W. Somerset Maugham's 1925 "The Painted Veil", in which the protagonist's husband, bitter at her infidelity, brought her to cholera-stricken China in hopes that she would take ill and die. When he catches cholera instead, he dies with the quotation "The dog it was that died" on his lips.
The play was transferred to television in 1988 by Channel 4
. The cast was:
Great Britain
Great Britain or Britain is an island situated to the northwest of Continental Europe. It is the ninth largest island in the world, and the largest European island, as well as the largest of the British Isles...
playwright Tom Stoppard
Tom Stoppard
Sir Tom Stoppard OM, CBE, FRSL is a British playwright, knighted in 1997. He has written prolifically for TV, radio, film and stage, finding prominence with plays such as Arcadia, The Coast of Utopia, Every Good Boy Deserves Favour, Professional Foul, The Real Thing, and Rosencrantz and...
.
Written for BBC Radio
BBC Radio
BBC Radio is a service of the British Broadcasting Corporation which has operated in the United Kingdom under the terms of a Royal Charter since 1927. For a history of BBC radio prior to 1927 see British Broadcasting Company...
in 1982, it concerns the dilemma faced by a spy over whom he actually works for. The play was also adapted for television by Stoppard, and broadcast in 1988.
Story
Rupert Purvis works for 'Q6', a department of an unnamed espionageEspionage
Espionage or spying involves an individual obtaining information that is considered secret or confidential without the permission of the holder of the information. Espionage is inherently clandestine, lest the legitimate holder of the information change plans or take other countermeasures once it...
agency of the British Government. As the play begins, he is in the process of committing suicide by jumping off Waterloo Bridge
Waterloo Bridge
Waterloo Bridge is a road and foot traffic bridge crossing the River Thames in London, England between Blackfriars Bridge and Hungerford Bridge. The name of the bridge is in memory of the British victory at the Battle of Waterloo in 1815...
into the Thames. However, the attempt goes wrong when he falls not into the water but onto a passing barge, breaking his legs and killing a dog which was on the deck at the time.
Over the course of the play, the reasons for this emerge. Some years ago, Purvis was approached by a Soviet spy named Rashnikov, who asked him to work as a double agent. Purvis reported this to his British superiors, who told him to pretend to work as a Soviet double agent
Double agent
A double agent, commonly abbreviated referral of double secret agent, is a counterintelligence term used to designate an employee of a secret service or organization, whose primary aim is to spy on the target organization, but who in fact is a member of that same target organization oneself. They...
whilst really working for them. However, Purvis also recalls that Rashnikov had told him to tell his British masters that he was being recruited, effectively setting up a double bluff ahead of time. Purvis also told this to the British - but is worried that when he did so, it was again because Rashnikov told him to do so. The upshot is that the British and the Russians have been using Purvis to shuttle false information between each other; but in order to allay the other side's suspicions, each has been giving real information to the other as well.
The result of this is that Purvis is no longer sure who his employer is - is he really working for the Russians or the British? Purvis's manager Giles Blair visits Purvis at Clifftops, a rest home on the Norfolk
Norfolk
Norfolk is a low-lying county in the East of England. It has borders with Lincolnshire to the west, Cambridgeshire to the west and southwest and Suffolk to the south. Its northern and eastern boundaries are the North Sea coast and to the north-west the county is bordered by The Wash. The county...
coast which is maintained by the agency for its staff. In the process of finding Purvis, Blair encounters not one but two inmates, both of whom pose as officials. The result is that when he finally meets the real administrator, Doctor Seddon, he is highly suspicious, and when Seddon tries to interest him in the guano
Guano
Guano is the excrement of seabirds, cave dwelling bats, and seals. Guano manure is an effective fertilizer due to its high levels of phosphorus and nitrogen and also its lack of odor. It was an important source of nitrates for gunpowder...
he has found from a colony of bats in the bell tower (Blair: Bats? In the Belfry?! Seddon: Mmm. Had 'em for years and never realised..), he makes hasty excuses and runs away, bumping into Purvis as he does so.
They discuss Purvis's problem, and Blair, in the course of attempting to make Purvis feel better, inadvertently shows him that his entire life has been pointless. Purvis is actually greatly calmed by this, and he and Blair part on good terms. The next scene opens at Purvis's memorial service - he has succeeded in committing suicide by rolling his wheelchair off a cliff at the rest home. Blair ponders: 'One asks oneself, with the benefit of hindsight, was Clifftops the ideal place to send someone with a tendency to fling themselves from a great height to a watery grave? Of course at the time one didn't realise it was a tendency...'
In the closing scene, the whole structure is explained by the agency's unnamed chief, although even this explanation remains dizzyingly complex. The chief sums up by saying 'Purvis was acting as a genuine Russian spy in order to preserve his cover as a bogus Russian spy. In other words, if Purvis's mother had been kicked by a donkey, things would be very much as they are. If I were Purvis I'd drown myself.'
In a second suicide note delivered to Blair after his memorial service, Purvis explains that whatever side he was really on, at the end he decided he felt more sympathy for the British side and is almost convinced that they were in fact his employers. He concludes: 'I hope I'm right. Although I would settle for knowing that I'm wrong'. He also adds that he has learned that Rashnikov was recalled to the Soviet Union on suspicion of having been duped by the British. 'Rashnikov said there was a perfectly good reason why this should have been the impression given; but unfortunately he died of a brainstorm while trying to work it out. You could say that the same thing happened to me.'
Characters
Giles Blair, Purvis's boss at Q6; sophisticated and worldly, he has none of Purvis's internal doubts and so has great difficulty grasping the crux of Purvis's dilemma. 'I never really got beyond us being British and them being atheists and communists. You can't argue with that so I think I rather switched off after that point... ...All you've got to do is remember what you believe.'Blair represents the quintessential upper-class English bureaucrat; there is nothing of the glamour of James Bond
James Bond
James Bond, code name 007, is a fictional character created in 1953 by writer Ian Fleming, who featured him in twelve novels and two short story collections. There have been a six other authors who wrote authorised Bond novels or novelizations after Fleming's death in 1964: Kingsley Amis,...
about him. Despite being perhaps the central character of the play - certainly he has the most lines - he remains a somewhat ineffectual figure, happy to allow events to follow their course. Blair collects clocks - his house is full of them - and is also constructing a folly in the grounds of his house.
Rupert Purvis, a tortured soul. Purvis is highly principled, which makes it all the more upsetting for him when he can't recall exactly what those principles are.
Hogbin, described by Blair as a 'policeman' but actually another spy, Hogbin is assigned to investigate the circumstances of Purvis's suicide attempt, and in particular a letter he posted to Blair before his first attempt. Hogbin is the polar opposite of Blair - doggedly determined, prone to panic and seeing conspiracies at every turn.
Pamela Blair, wife of Giles. She runs a donkey
Donkey
The donkey or ass, Equus africanus asinus, is a domesticated member of the Equidae or horse family. The wild ancestor of the donkey is the African Wild Ass, E...
sanctuary, occasionally appropriating her husband's study as an operating theatre for her injured charges. She is having an affair with Blair's boss; a fact about which both she and Blair are entirely open and unconcerned.
Themes
The Dog It Was That Died has been described as Stoppard's 'le Carrécture', and it takes much of its mannered approach from John le CarréJohn le Carré
David John Moore Cornwell , who writes under the name John le Carré, is an author of espionage novels. During the 1950s and the 1960s, Cornwell worked for MI5 and MI6, and began writing novels under the pseudonym "John le Carré"...
's work.
The play takes place against a background of Cold War paranoia, and at the time of its first production it was quite believable that such complex shenanigans could take place. It is full of Stoppard's usual verbal pyrotechnics, particularly in those scenes where the full details of Purvis's career are being explored.
The characters of Blair and Purvis are contrasted skillfully - one the benignly complacent bureaucrat, the other a deeply principled fighter for his beliefs. There is also a class contrast between Blair and Hogbin; whilst the agencies involved are never specifically stated, their respective characters conform exactly to the period's stereotypes of MI6 and MI5
MI5
The Security Service, commonly known as MI5 , is the United Kingdom's internal counter-intelligence and security agency and is part of its core intelligence machinery alongside the Secret Intelligence Service focused on foreign threats, Government Communications Headquarters and the Defence...
officers, as Blair is very much the upper-class and somewhat louche eccentric
Eccentricity (behavior)
In popular usage, eccentricity refers to unusual or odd behavior on the part of an individual. This behavior would typically be perceived as unusual or unnecessary, without being demonstrably maladaptive...
and Hogbin the conscientious if unimaginative middle-class moralist. However, in the end Blair proves to be more in control of the situation than Hogbin.
The play also explores eccentricity
Eccentricity (behavior)
In popular usage, eccentricity refers to unusual or odd behavior on the part of an individual. This behavior would typically be perceived as unusual or unnecessary, without being demonstrably maladaptive...
in general in a fond way. Virtually all the characters in it have a pronounced eccentricity of some kind: Blair's clocks and his folly; his wife's donkey sanctuary and casual affair with her husband's superior; the chief's regular smoking of opium
Opium
Opium is the dried latex obtained from the opium poppy . Opium contains up to 12% morphine, an alkaloid, which is frequently processed chemically to produce heroin for the illegal drug trade. The latex also includes codeine and non-narcotic alkaloids such as papaverine, thebaine and noscapine...
, the obsession with rare cheese of the vicar who carries out Purvis's memorial, and Seddon's fascination with guano. Additionally, Blair and Purvis's former boss 'Jell' apparently used to wear hunting pink to the office. Purvis's second suicide note makes this delight in the gentle eccentricities of his countrymen explicit, describing English eccentricity as 'a curious bloom, which here at Clifftops only appears in its overblown variety.'
The title of the play comes from Oliver Goldsmith
Oliver Goldsmith
Oliver Goldsmith was an Irish writer, poet and physician known for his novel The Vicar of Wakefield , his pastoral poem The Deserted Village , and his plays The Good-Natur'd Man and She Stoops to Conquer...
's poem An Elegy on the death of a mad dog which ends:
- But soon a wonder came to light,
- That showed the rogues they lied:
- The man recovered of the bite,
- The dog it was that died.
In some ways Purvis may be seen as the mad dog of the poem.
Stoppard may have borrowed the idea to use this quotation from British novelist W. Somerset Maugham's 1925 "The Painted Veil", in which the protagonist's husband, bitter at her infidelity, brought her to cholera-stricken China in hopes that she would take ill and die. When he catches cholera instead, he dies with the quotation "The dog it was that died" on his lips.
Productions
First produced 1982 on BBC Radio 4. The cast was:- Giles Blair: Charles GrayCharles Gray (actor)Charles Gray was an English actor who was well-known for roles including the arch-villain Blofeld in the James Bond film Diamonds Are Forever, Sherlock Holmes' brother Mycroft Holmes in the Granada television series, and as The Criminologist in the cult classic The Rocky Horror Picture Show in...
- Rupert Purvis: Dinsdale LandenDinsdale LandenDinsdale James Landen was a British actor known mainly for his television appearances.Landen was born at Margate. He made his television debut in 1959 as Pip in an adaptation of Great Expectations and made his film debut in 1960, with a walk-on part in The League of Gentlemen...
- Hogbin: Kenneth CranhamKenneth CranhamKenneth Cranham is a film, television and stage actor. He starred in the title role in the popular 1980s comedy drama Shine on Harvey Moon. He also appeared in Layer Cake, Gangster No. 1, Rome, Oliver! and many other films. He is probably best known to horror genre fans as the deranged Dr...
- Pamela Blair: Penelope KeithPenelope KeithPenelope Anne Constance Keith, CBE, DL is an English actress.Having started her television career in the 1950s, Penelope Keith became a household name in the United Kingdom in the 1970s when she played Margo Leadbetter in the sitcom The Good Life...
- Chief: Maurice DenhamMaurice DenhamMaurice Denham OBE was an English character actor who appeared in over 100 television programmes and films throughout his long career.-Life and career:...
- Doctor Seddon: John Le MesurierJohn Le MesurierJohn Le Mesurier was a BAFTA Award-winning English actor. He is most famous for his role as Sergeant Arthur Wilson in the popular 1970s BBC comedy Dad's Army.-Career:...
The play was transferred to television in 1988 by Channel 4
Channel 4
Channel 4 is a British public-service television broadcaster which began working on 2 November 1982. Although largely commercially self-funded, it is ultimately publicly owned; originally a subsidiary of the Independent Broadcasting Authority , the station is now owned and operated by the Channel...
. The cast was:
- Giles Blair: Alan BatesAlan BatesSir Alan Arthur Bates CBE was an English actor, who came to prominence in the 1960s, a time of high creativity in British cinema, when he demonstrated his versatility in films ranging from the popular children’s story Whistle Down the Wind to the "kitchen sink" drama A Kind of Loving...
- Rupert Purvis: Alan HowardAlan HowardAlan MacKenzie Howard, CBE, is an English actor known for his roles on stage, television and film.He was a member of the Royal Shakespeare Company from 1966 to 1983, and played leading roles at the Royal National Theatre between 1992 and 2000.-Personal life:Howard is the only son of the actor...
- Hogbin: Simon CadellSimon CadellSimon John Cadell was an English actor.Born in London, he was the grandson of the Scottish character actor Jean Cadell, the brother of the actress Selina Cadell, and the cousin of the actor Guy Siner. He was educated at Bedales School at Petersfield where his close friends included Gyles...
- Pamela Blair: Ciaran MaddenCiaran MaddenCiaran Madden is a British stage, film, and television actress. She is a graduate of the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts, and is an Associate Member of the academy...
- Doctor Seddon: John WoodvineJohn WoodvineJohn Woodvine is an English stage and screen actor who has appeared in more than 70 theatre productions, as well as a similar number of television and film roles.-Early life:...