Another Country is loosely based on the life of the spy Guy Burgess, Guy Bennett in the play, and examines the effect his homosexuality and exposure to Marxism has on his life, and the hypocrisy and snobbery of the English public schools.

The setting is a 1930s Eton-esque public school, where Guy Bennett and Tommy Judd are friends because they are both outsiders in their own ways. Bennett is openly gay, while Judd is a Marxist.

One day a teacher walks in on Martineau and a boy from another house having sex. Martineau subsequently kills himself because of the shame of having been found in a homosexual embrace, and chaos erupts as teachers and the senior students try their hardest to keep the scandal away from parents and the rest of the outside world. However, the gay scandal gives the army-obsessed house captain Fowler, who dislikes both Bennett and Judd, a welcome reason to scheme against Bennett to keep him from becoming a "God" - a school name for the elite pupils of the school. Fowler is able to intercept a love letter from Bennett to James Harcourt. Bennett agrees to be punished so as not to compromise Harcourt. (On an earlier occasion he had simply blackmailed the other Gods for their own "experiences" with him.)

Meanwhile, Judd is reluctant to become a prefect, since he feels that he cannot endorse a "system of oppression" such as this, and has a memorable, bitter speech about how the boys oppressed by the system grow up to be the fathers who maintain it. He however eventually agrees to become a prefect in order to prevent the hateful Fowler from becoming Head of House. This never comes about, however, because Devenish agrees to stay at school and become a prefect if he is nominated to become a God instead of Bennett.

Devastated at the loss of his cherished dream of becoming a God, Bennett comes to realize that the British class system relies strongly on outward appearance and that to be openly gay is a severe hindrance to a career as a diplomat. The epilogue of the movie states that he emigrated to Russia later in his life, after having been a spy for the Soviet Union. Judd has died fighting in the Spanish Civil War.

Julian Mitchell FRSL (born 1 May 1935 in Epping, Essex), full name Charles Julian Humphrey Mitchell, is an English playwright, screenwriter and occasional novelist. He is best known as screenwriter for TV, producing many original plays and series episodes, including at least ten for Inspector Morse. He has written nine produced plays, including Another Country, which won the SWET (now Oliviers) award for best play of the year (1981), and After Aida (1986), a play-with-music about composer Giuseppe Verdi. He has also written the screen play for five movies, starting by co-writing Arabesque (1966), and including the 1984 film adaptation of Another Country, Wilde and Vincent & Theo.

Mitchell was educated at Winchester College where he won the English Verse and Duncan Reading Prizes [1]. He then did his national service in submarines 1953-55, (Sub Lt RNVR). He then went to Oxford, where he received a BA with first class honours in 1958. This was followed by a period as a Harkness Fellow in the USA (1959-61). Since 1962 has been a freelance writer.

In the late 1960s, Mitchell co-wrote the teleplay Arthur (Or the Decline and Fall of the British Empire) with Ray Davies of The Kinks. It was never produced, though it gave rise to the band's concept album. He recently recalled the aborted project: "Arthur had a most unhappy history. It was originally meant to be a ... sort of rock opera, and we got as far as casting (excellent director and actors) and finding locations and were about to go when the producer went to a production meeting without a proper budget, tried to flannel his way through it, was immediately sussed and the production pulled. I have never been able to forgive the man."

In 2007 he wrote for BBC4 the drama Consenting Adults about Sir John Wolfenden and his celebrated 1957 report.