The Big Finish Audio Avengers!

[Nyder]

Loving the incidental music - very Dankworth!

[Stuart Wallis]

Is that a euphemism?

[Dirk Gently]

Very possibly.

[Nyder]

Nice little interview with BF cast & crew on Radio 4's PM today. Worth a listen on the iPlayer! Skip fwd roughly 45m to find it

[Nyder]

It's out today! I know what I'll be listening to when I get home :-)

[Nyder]

Hot Snow

8/10 for me! I was expecting to have a problem with the interpretation of Steed, but it was Dr Keel I took a bit of time to get used to. Ian Hendry was so .... well .. rough and tetchy - this Keel is a bit smoother around the edges. But the story was faithful to the original feel of the TV series. I very much look fwd to listening to more.

I do think Colin was miscast though - and I hate to say that cos I do loves ol' Sixie!

[SiHart]

It's terribly good!

[Rob McCow]

Brah brah brah-brah! Avengers! By far and away the most exciting thing for me about this new Big Finish version of The Avengers were the re-recorded music scores. That's not to say that Hot Snow wasn't any good, but the music was fantastic and was always one of my favourite things about the show! Such a superb idea to include the advert-break themes as well. It wouldn't have felt complete without it.

As for the actual story, I thought it was good but not excellent. The Mockney villains let the side down a bit and there didn't seem to be much grief from Dr Keel after the death of his fiancée. However, Anthony Howell (Dr Keel) and Julian Wadham (John Steed) were both up to the very difficult challenge of following their predecessors' footsteps without doing a straightforward impersonation.

It was a success though. I can tell because I'm looking forward to hearing the rest of them.

[Rob McCow]

Brought To Book - What I didn't realise was that this was actually a direct sequel to Hot Snow, dealing with the fall out from that episode and clearing up the loose ends. For that reason, it's a lot more satisfying. It wasn't hard to follow either, which is a real worry for these early Avengers episodes. Some of them are hard to follow on screen, with characters popping up who get named once but aren't terribly memorable. I was making mushroom soup while listening to this and I think I caught everything!

Overall it's fairly gritty and dark, closer in tone to some of the hard hitting cop shows of the 70's than the Emma Peel era Avengers. I'm totally relaxed with the new Steed and Keel, which probably means the actors are doing a wonderful job. There's an element of Jeeves and Wooster in their relationship at this stage even though Dr Keel is far from hapless. Steed directs behind the scenes and Keel has to face the villains. It was also very pleasing to see that not everything goes according to plan!

Very unusually for BF, I could imagine listening to these again at some point.

[Nyder]

Apart from the awful Chinese lady (definitely a product of the time!) I really enjoyed Brought To Book. Steed's character is already showing signs of quirkiness, as his scene in Dr Keel's surgery pretending to be a patient proves! I hope we get more scenes with Doctors Keel, Treddle and staff (okay Sixie I'm warming to you!)

Hope the mushroom soup was okay Steve :-)

[MacNimon]

This series sounds promising...I'll have to give it a try soon. Mind you, it'll probably just join my long list of episodes still to be given a listen...

Speaking of The Avengers on audio, has anyone ever listened to the original radio series from the 1970s? It's a largely forgotten footnote in Avengers history with many episodes wiped, but here's a bit of background info for anyone who's interested...


The Avengers On Radio

Episodes are available for streaming here

[Rob McCow]

One For The Mortuary done as well, which is the most Avenger-y of the lot! Maybe not to Diana Rigg levels, but I could certainly imagine Cathy in this plot that takes Dr David Keel and Steed to Geneva. Probably my favourite of the four.

[Nyder]

Square Root of Evil

Steed undercover as an Irish forger. How I wish this episode was in the archives - just to hear Macnee's Oirish accent! Steed really is very flirty in this one - if it's not Carol in the surgery it's the lady in "HQ" showing him the film dossier. Keel doesn't appear till near Act III is a shame because the interplay between him & Steed is great.

[Rob McCow]

But why is it called 'Square Root Of Evil'?!

[Nyder]

I was wondering that!

[SiHart]

Good news!

[Nyder]

Not long to wait now till the next lot of episodes :-)


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[Nyder]

Hooray - Volume 2 arrived today! No time to listen now though - it'll have to be Sunday :-)


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[Nyder]

Well actually it was today!

"Ashes of Roses"

Who'd have thought a Beauty Salon could be so dangerous!!

Gee it's good to have Steed and Keel back. Although we didn't get much of Keel apart from a wonderfully barbed exchange between him & Steed in the surgery. Steed shows his really devious side as he wines and dines (actually brandies and dines) a lovely lady just to get some info from her.

Interesting to note that in the TV version, Mark Eden plays Jacques Beronne (it's Tez Molloy in this BF version)

[Nyder]

Please Don't Feed The Animals

"How do porcupines make love?....... Very carefully!"

Blackmail, ciphers, a dodgy zoo and a strip club called The Blue Mango. Marvellous! BF have really captured the seedy, gritty feel of Series 1. But at the same time you can hear Steed getting more & more quirky (much to Keel's annoyance!)

[Nyder]

Oh and Steed gets to wear an eye patch too!

[Stuart Wallis]

"How do porcupines make love?....... Very carefully!"

How do Welsh porcupines make love?

Very Caerphilly.

[Nyder]

The Radioactive Man

This one is so Steed-lite he's almost invisible! A real pity because it's their edgy relationship that makes the stories sparkle.

Having said that, it's still a good story and VERY sixties in tone - dodgy Russian accents and Geiger counters galore. Oh, and Richard Franklin!

[Nyder]

The Springers

This is the first of the 3rd boxed set - it's good to have Steed & Keel back! The latter still very distrustful of the former - and rightly so! Steed impersonates a naval chappy in this story - and is very funny too. You can definitely sense a show that is finding its unique identity and is getting nor and more quirky, particularly the way Steed is being portrayed.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[Nyder]

The Yellow Needle

Part way through this now. Best line so far is from an exasperated Keel to Steed: "People normally mellow when they get to your age. Where do you keep your feelings - laced up in your polo boots?"