Spies Of Warsaw: Will We Be Meeting Mercier Again?

Spies Of Warsaw, which aired earlier this year, introduced the character of Colonel Jean-François Mercier: soldier, French military attaché and spy. The romantic, heroic and tortured Mercier quickly became a favourite among fans, many of whom wished that they could see more of him beyond the two episodes that made up the mini-series. However, as Spies Of Warsaw was the only Alan Furst tale to feature Mercier, it seemed unlikely that he would return to screens .

However, there now appears to be a glimmer of hope. Peter White, journalist for Broadcast Now tweeted:

@peterzwhite: The producer of BBC4's The Spies of Warsaw says he is talking to author Alan Furst to see if there's a chance to produce more eps.

Interestingly, writers Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais had already proposed something similar in an interview for the BBC:

Could you imagine returning to this world for future adaptations?

IAN: We would love to do more – although Mercier isn’t in any of the other novels. Alan Furst tends to use different heroes in different novels. That’s just  his way. DICK: So we might be forced to write a sequel to this, taking it on without Alan Furst’s help. Because we leave Mercier at the beginning of the Second World War. We haven’t covered wartime in this one whatsoever. IAN: So it’s a question of whether we do ‘the further adventures of Colonel Mercier’, or whether we go on to make other films in the Spies brand – Spies of Budapest and so on. It would be nice to put a sort of seal on it, so that audiences could think, “Ooh, good, THAT’S coming back...”

They have already set a precedent by adapting scenes from another Furst novel, The Polish Officer to form a climax for the TV production of Spies Of Warsaw.

Spies Of Warsaw was a co-production by Fresh Pictures for the BBC, Apple Film for TV Poland, BBC America and ARTE France.The executive producer for Fresh Pictures was Richard Fell. Spies Of Warsaw  starred David Tennant and Janet Montgomery with Burn Gorman, Marcin Dorocinski and Anton Lesser.

Find out more about Spies Of Warsaw here