Game on

Alan Clawley reflects on Birmingham’s latest TV star.

The first episode of the spy thriller, The Game, set in the 1970s and filmed in and around the former Central Library in Birmingham, was screened last night (BBC2, 9pm).

The library, complete with what looked like the original desks in the double-height space of one of the Reference Library floors, was the main office in the headquarters of MI5. The heavily ribbed concrete walls in the interior shots of Daddy’s office and the coffered ceilings with their integrated lighting fixtures featured prominently.

But it was seeing an image of the inverted ziggurat merged with an image of St Pauls Cathedral that I found particularly exciting. It looked grand in that setting and inspired a fanciful thought that if only it could be transported to London where it was appreciated, it might be rescued from the hands of its philistine owners.