The story of Blunt, Burgess, Philby and Maclean, the most notorious double-agents in British history. In 1934, four brilliant, but seemingly conventional young men at University of Cambridge are recruited to spy for the Soviet Union. Fuelled by youthful idealism, passionately committed to social justice and to fighting fascism, they begin a 20-year career of deceit and treachery, becoming embroiled in obtaining and passing on vital information. Their careers take them from Vienna to Guernica, New York and Washington, with a final, desperate flight to Moscow.
Anthony Blunt is cool, viciously funny and terrifyingly clever, and is entrusted with the closest secrets of the Royal Family. Guy Burgess is wickedly gifted, full of nerve and verve. His jobs at The Times, BBC and MI5 give him access to national security secrets. Kim Philby is the perfect spy. He becomes head of counter-intelligence at MI6, "stopping people like us becoming people like us". Donald Maclean is the Foreign Office double-agent with a split personality; warm and funny, then wild and confessional.
The four do whatever is necessary to further the cause, with their own promising careers discarded and every aspect of their lives becoming a bluff. Marriages and passions are destroyed, Enigma codes, atomic details and other top secrets are passed on to Russian contacts, and Cold War spies are murdered. By the end of their careers they have become different men. Philby becomes the major agent, with Blunt retreating to the shadows, Maclean experiencing a family and career crisis, Burgess further misbehaving and almost always drunk. But during almost 20 years of counter-intelligence, and despite their personal journeys, the four are bound by their beliefs and their secrets.
A spy drama of the highest quality production, Cambridge Spies concentrates on the personal dynamics of the four men. It begins with a profound closeness based on a passion for a cause, and then moves on to shared sacrifices, stress, strain, and eventually breakdown and betrayal, closely observing the impact that events have on each individual's life.