The Greatest TV of the '60's

[Rhonda]

As I mentioned in "The £50,000 Breakfast" episode discussion, The Avengers was briefly mentioned in this new documentary on Saturday night. If anyone can't "watch again" I've rewatched my recording and made a transcript. It's a minute or two long at about 52mins from the start (I cut the adverts).

previous programme topic Z-Cars

Opening Titles - Emma Colour Era with champagne glasses - with Narrator: “But while gritty drama was all the rage, glamour was not in short supply”.

Simon O’Brien (actor and presenter): “The Avengers was a really good romp, done incredibly stylishly”.

Opening Titles continue with the flowers and sword

Emma Kennedy (writer and actor): “The sensational world of espionage where all these things are being investigated by a man in a bowler hat – John Steed – and his incredible, incredible self assured female assistant”.

The b/w Still of Steed with umbrella raising his bowler
The close-up of Emma’s face in red top and with a gun

Clip of Emma about the attacked by a car at night in ‘The £50,000 Breakfast’

Simon O’Brien: “The hardest thing about The Avengers was Mrs. Peel. Wow! Diana Rigg absolutely could take on the worst boys. No matter how big these guys were she’d be “Villain, there you go””.

Clip continues with the fight

Ann Bell (actress): “The choreography and the panache and the wit they showed in those. I mean you’d rejoice when she beat a whole room of men and didn’t care if you believed it or not”.

Pans up the b/w still of Steed and Emma with trident and round flag with Narrator “The Avengers was a huge hit both at home and in the States where it seduced viewers with an image of cool Britannia decades ahead of its time”.

Sheila Ferguson (singer): “The slickness of Diana Rigg; the way she handled herself, you hadn’t seen a woman doing that. I thought “I need to watch. I need to go to England. I need to see this!””

cut to Whicker’s World

It was pretty complimentary and the whole programme was rather good if you remember the '60's!

[Frankymole]

Thanks for thetranscript!

I wouldn't have called any of Steed's partners his "assistant". Quite often they were the motive force. If anything, he was their assistant.