Full Cast Audios of the Lost Avengers Episodes

[mousemeat]

How can you say it isn't well adapted? It flows perfectly and the additions are done, as I say, economically and effectively - they enhance. As-live TV in 1960/61 was theatre with a camera pointed at it, effectively. As such it works brilliantly on audio. If you've heard it, and can compare it with the script extracts from the originals on Alan's site or in the book, you can see how suitable and suited it is. And we were watching on tiny 9-inch screens with fuzzy reception, so these programmes were more sound than vision then anyway!

Sometimes I think you just enjoy moaning - as I say, it's entertainment. If you don't enjoy it, go and listen to /watch something you do enjoy.

Come to think of it, I'll do the same myself now - this place has been depressing me recently.

I was just asking if they had been significantly altered for adaptation to radio. Honestly, from the episodes I've listened to I've been confused about location and who is speaking at times - there are not that many "tells," as there often are in radio adaptations. I was wondering if that was a source of adaptation. That's all I meant. I want to like these episodes, and I want to understand them, because I like The Avengers.

I'm sorry, I'm not intending to sound like I'm moaning about anything. I was really just asking a question for my own edification and perhaps should not have editorialized beyond that.

moaning...is that a UK thing ? lol...actually, I think we have better moaners in the States...compariing the audio plays to TV show, is like comparing apples and oranges...yeah, both are fruit..but both are radically different so to speak..in my opinion

[Timeless A-Peel]

Is it just me or do Wadham and Howell sound really similar?

Not to my ears, but maybe it's different for native English speakers who can tell all the nuances of accent often down to the nearest town and the decade in which people were born!?

They don't sound alike at all to me. I can't claim to pinpoint the accents or anything, but the timbres of their voices are quite distinct--they "sound" the way they should look, if that makes any sense, regardless if I picture Macnee/Hendry or Wadham/Howell as speaking.

We've had so much research into the Keel era recently, between Alan's site and book, these serials, etc., that I'm getting the best handle on the season and the characters of Keel and Steed that I've ever had--season one used to be this vague ghost season that I knew was there, but was mainly notable for being lost. Now I have a better sense of what's been lost, and it makes the tragedy of the wiped episodes that much worse. The more I learn about the Keel era, the more I think it could have been one of my favourite seasons of the actual series. We've been so lucky that there have been people to research and bring the whole season to light, and even luckier that someone thought to dramatise them!

[Alan]

Thank you, Timeless (not that I can claim any credit for the idea of audio dramatising the missing episodes bar planting a seed in Nick Briggs' mind a few years ago!).

Your understanding will soon be further enhanced when my next book (also written with the estimable Richard McGinlay) is released in June.

[Timeless A-Peel]

Thank you, Timeless (not that I can claim any credit for the idea of audio dramatising the missing episodes bar planting a seed in Nick Briggs' mind a few years ago!).

Your understanding will soon be further enhanced when my next book (also written with the estimable Richard McGinlay) is released in June.

Without the seed, there'd likely be no serials, so don't undersell yourself!

But really, your site really sparked my interest in the Keel era, and everything that's come since has just built on it. It's a fascinating and hugely important chapter in the series' history, and I can't wait to see what you and Richard come up with!

[Alan]

Thanks, Timeless. It was certainly something I hoped to achieve when I started investigating Series 1, but I never imagined that it would involve me in reconstructing the episodes, publishing two books and being able to sit down and listen to audio dramatisations! Beyond my wildest dreams!

[Lhbizness]

As I say, I'll have to listen to the rest of the episodes and see if the voices become clearer to my hearing. I've paid for them all, might as well give them a fair shake. I think it's easier in some ways to accept Howell as Keel because so little remains of Hendry's performance; Wadham has a more uphill battle because there are a further five seasons in which Macnee's Steed is the main character. Every time I hear Wadham speak (when I can discern that it's him), I have a sense of listening to an imitation and not the real thing. Maybe it would be the same with any actor, maybe it's just an issue with the casting of Wadham. Perhaps that's my personal hang-up, but it does diminish my enjoyment.

I want to reiterate that I'm not at all trying to diminish or dismiss what Alan or what Big Finish have accomplished in bringing these episodes into a more complete form. I simply have reservations about my own experience of them. I do hope this doesn't sound like I'm moaning.

[Alan]

Not at all.

However, I don't agree with you - I think Julian Wadham is a remarkably good choice for Steed. It doesn't feel like an imitation to me, more like he has taken the essence of Macnee's style and then gone his own way.

If anything, it was Howell who I took longer to accept.

[Lhbizness]

Not at all.

However, I don't agree with you - I think Julian Wadham is a remarkably good choice for Steed. It doesn't feel like an imitation to me, more like he has taken the essence of Macnee's style and then gone his own way.

If anything, it was Howell who I took longer to accept.

I think I'm just fundamentally a purist about my favorite characters. I also get antsy about anyone other than Jeremy Brett playing Sherlock Holmes. I don't really see Macnee in Wadham's Steed - just an attempt to "be" Steed that falls kinda flat, if that makes sense. So much of the style is the way Macnee physically presents himself, which is obviously not there on audio. Maybe I'm just angry with Wadham for not being Macnee!

[Alan]

I know what you mean, and it is certainly something that often works against actors taking on roles which are so very linked with one particular actor. There's actually more of a case for any number of people playing Holmes because there's the original novels and short stories and every actor comes along and finds their interpretation from it.

Steed, while he started out on the printed page (the scripts), the character is as much Macnee's as the writers' as the creation of John Steed was a collaborative process. This is why everyone who plays the role will inevitably be compared to Macnee, because there is a lot of Macnee in the role as written. This is not the case with Holmes/Brett or Bond/Connery.

However, Donald Monat and Julian Wadham have proved to me that it *is* entirely possible to create a new Steed, which doesn't imitate, but takes the germ of the performance, the metre of the delivery, and yet make it their own.

Ralph Fiennes, on the other hand...

[Lhbizness]

It just makes me sad that our first introduction to John Steed is via another actor rather than Macnee. I feel a sense of erasure, which I know is not intended. There's no way to bring back those episodes, really. I guess this is the next best thing - it just gives me more of a sense of what is lost.

But as I say, I'll give the final two episodes a listen and see if my mind is changed.