UK newspaper, The Daily Mail has, via their website, unveiled a big secret stash of images from Tomas Alfredson’s breathlessly anticipated new spy thriller, Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy!

At the height of the Cold War, espionage veteran George Smiley (Gary Oldman) is forced from semi-retirement to ferret out a Soviet agent, or mole, within MI6. He could be any one of five men at the top of ‘The Circus’ (see below).

Below you will find first looks at Benedict Cumberbatch (Peter Guillam), Toby Jones (Percy Alleline), and Mark Strong (Jim Prideaux) and Sveltana Khodchenkova (Irina) as well as new views of John Hurt (Control), Gary Oldman, Colin Firth (Bill Haydon) and David Dencik (Toby Esterhase).  No Tom Hardy (Ricki Tarr) *sad face* and we still haven’t seen Ciaran Hinds (Roy Bland).

The paper also shared some of author John LeCarre’s descriptions of characters and key terms (which might make it easier for those who haven’t read the intelligent and complicated novel to follow along):

The Circus: Le Carré’s name for MI6. The author says, ‘There was a building opposite Moss Bros at Cambridge Circus which had a lot of rather mysterious curved windows to it, and two or three doors. And I thought, “That would make rather a good HQ.”‘ In the film, the disused Inglis Barracks in Mill Hill, north London, were used for the Circus offices.

Control: The head of the Circus and Smiley’s old mentor (John Hurt). Suspecting that someone in the service is a Russian mole, he devises the code names Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Poorman and Beggarman for the possible suspects – Beggarman being Smiley. Percy Alleline (Toby Jones) swiftly succeeds John Hurt’s character after a disastrous mission in Czechoslovakia.

Tinker: The code name for Percy Alleline. The head of the group in the Circus with access to Witchcraft (see below).

Tailor: Bill Haydon (Colin Firth). One of Alleline’s deputies, he runs ‘London Station’ and is having an affair with Smiley’s wife.

Soldier: Roy Bland (Ciarán Hinds). Another high-ranking Circus officer, and Haydon’s No 2, he was originally recruited by Smiley.

Poorman: Toby Esterhase (David Dencik). Another of Smiley’s recruits, he is head of the ‘lamplighters’ – a section that provides surveillance and couriers.

Scalphunters, babysitters, honeytraps and moles: Le Carré explained some of his technical terms in an interview after the book’s publication: ‘A scalphunter was a strong-arm man who did the really hard-nose, mail-fist operation… babysitters were the bodyguards who covered the clandestine meetings.’ A honeytrap, of course, was ‘a sexual enticement operation’. ‘All of those (words), I think, are made up,’ he said, ‘although I’m pleased to see that one or two have gone into the language… A “mole” is, I think, a genuine KGB term for somebody of the Philby sort who is recruited at a very tender age.’

Witchcraft: The code name for the intelligence produced by the Russian source Merlin. The group in the Circus with access to Witchcraft is seen as the elite.

Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy opens in the US & Canada on November 18 while the UK  gets it two months earlier, on 16 September (bastards!)