Today my Googling finally delivered the goods. The programme I was trying to remember was Spycatcher & the interrogator/hero was played by Bernard Archard.
It came as a surprise to me to learn that the real-life spycatcher, Lieutenant Oreste Cornel Pinto, was in fact Dutch.
To quote from Time magazine’s 1952 review of Pinto’s own book:
British spycatchers are not permitted, as Gestapo agents were, to pull out fingernails and toenails, or to crack open stubborn skulls with screw-hoops of steel. In some cases they are not even permitted to call a suspect a liar; they must say politely: "I suggest that your answer to my last question contained certain inaccuracies." Moreover, since no confession obtained under duress is valid in British law, the catcher must take care not to hector or bully his man beyond a certain point. The professional British spycatcher must 1) detect the spy, 2) confront the courts with solid proof or with confessions which appear to have been made with willing enthusiasm. The spy can then be hanged.
Since Spycatcher, the title of both the tv programme & of Pinto’s book, was later hijacked by Peter Wright, it is perhaps not surprising that I failed to associated it with the tv programme of me memory.
I have of course learned not to be so readily accepting of the idea that the British don't do torture, but i am still largely persuadede by the argument that it just does not produce reliable information.
