The Ginger Man | Movies & Media Adaptations

The Ginger Man Adaptations

Donleavy himself adapted TheGinger Man for the stage, and the play, extensively bowdlerized from the novel, has enjoyed several stagings and some good reviews — although not in Dublin. There has long been a rumor that the producers of a successful British television series, Secret Agent, with its existential and amoral hero John Drake, when unable to use the title in American syndication because of copyright problems, elected to show the series on American television as Danger Man in a kind of double reference to Dangerfield, the ginger man. I have been unable to confirm this rumor, but the mirth, ruthlessness, and thinly suppressed angst of Patrick McGoohan's portrayal of Drake makes the choice fortuitous if not deliberate.