An Englishman Abroad is a 1983 BBC television drama film, based on the true story of a chance meeting of an actress, Coral Browne, with Guy Burgess (Alan Bates), a member of the Cambridge spy ring who worked for the Soviet Union whilst with MI6. The production was written by Alan Bennett and directed by John Schlesinger; Browne stars as herself.
Filmed in Glasgow and Dundee, the setting is Moscow in 1958, Burgess had fled to the city following MI6 detection of his treason. Burgess barges into Browne's dressing room in the interval of a touring Shakespeare Memorial Theatre (which became one of the bases of the Royal Shakespeare Company) production of Hamlet, in which she portrayed Gertrude, and charms her. Later on she is invited to his Moscow flat, finding it with some difficulty, to measure him for a suit that he would like ordered from his London tailor.
Both Browne and Bates were winners of the BAFTA awards for acting for their roles in this production.
Alan Bennett gives the date of Coral Browne's meeting with Burgess as 1958 in the Introduction to his Single Spies, which contains the text of An Englishman Abroad in the stage play version and the text of A Question of Attribution about Anthony Blunt. Single Spies, London, Faber, 1989, ISBN 0-571-14105-6.