The two performers alongside Morecambe and Wise, known as "Sid and Dick", are Sidney Green and Richard Hills (frequently credited as S.C. Green and R.M. Hills). They were Morecambe and Wise's writers during the 1960s for the pair's television shows on ITV, as well as their three cinematic films. In the TV shows they would occasionally make appearances in sketches like this. (In reality they did not accompany the boys on stage tours.)
In this series' version of Kim Philby's November 1955 newsreel press conference, Pearce's greasy locks of loose hair are near duplicates of the real Philby's hair in the newsreel. Pearce's pronunciation of certain words also mirrors those of the real Philby.
Nicholas Elliott's wife, Elizabeth, takes him on a mystery date to the theatre to cheer him up. It's never stated, but the show they go to view is Morecambe and Wise, who perform two of their early sketches.
The room at the top of the building in Beirut as a set was the actual room used to debrief Philby in 1963.
Burgess and Maclean fled to Russia in 1951. In 1955, an MP challenged PM Anthony Eden to 'out' Philby. The movie The Third Man (1949) had become such a part of the spy lexicon, that Philby was called 'the third man' who assisted Burgess and Maclean. In his November, 1955, press conference, Philby denied that, saying at least two different times that he was not 'the third man'.