When The Prisoner filmed in Southend - in pictures

The Prisoner starring Patrick McGoohan hit TV screens in 1967 and featured McGooham playing the lead role of Number Six, an unnamed British intelligence agent who is abducted and imprisoned in a mysterious coastal village.

The cast, crew and actors assemble at the Kursaal to shoot the episode (Image: Rayleigh Town Museum)

Number Six’s catchphrase of “I am not a number! I am a free man!” is still well known today.

A single series of 17 episodes was filmed between September 1966 and January 1968, with the exterior location famously filming in Portmeirion, Wales.

One of the episodes- The Girl Who Was Death- was filmed at the Kursaal in Southend in October 1967 and these shots, from our archives, show some of the action from that day.

Lights, camera, action - the filming gets underway (Image: Rayleigh Town Museum)

You can see actress British actress Justine Lord being filmed for the episode as well as cast and crew, with Kursaal rides in the background.

Apparently, for the episode filmed at The Kursaal a double was used for Patrick McGoohan as he was filming the movie Ice Station Zebra at the time. He would go onto become a huge movie star in Hollywood, with lead roles in blockbusters such as Escape fro Alcatraz and Braveheart.

Actress Justine Lord pictured with the Kursaal ride in the background (Image: Rayleigh Town Museum)

Thanks to the Rayleigh Town Museum, -who are looking after our photo archives- for sharing these nostalgic images.