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 ‘Must
See TV’ is een reeks documentaires, telkens 30
minuten lang, geproduceerd door ‘Talent Television’
voor ITV ter gelegenheid van het 50 jarig bestaan van de Britse
commerciële omroep in 2005. Het eerste programma, uitgezonden
op
10 november 2005 op ITV 1, brengt het succesverhaal van ‘The Avengers’.
Verteller en gastvrouw is de Britse actrice Joan Collins.
Andere documentaires in de reeks belichten de
programma’s 'Kenny Everett', 'The Sweeney',
'Spitting
Image', 'Upstairs
Downstairs' en 'Minder'.
Hieronder vindt u de Engelse tekst van de ‘Avengers Must See
TV’ uitzending:
Joan
Collins: “It
was the swinging sixties when popular culture was being influenced by
the music of ‘The
Beatles’, fashions of Carnaby Street and
films and TV secret agents. In 1962 I was playing a secret agent myself
starring alongside Bob
Hope and Bing
Crosby in a movie called ‘The Road to Hong Kong’
and Patrick Macnee was
dominating
our television screens as John Steed
in the stunning and groundbreaking
series called ‘The  Avengers’.
The Avengers was an
adrenaline charged off-the-wall action adventure series, which became
one of ITV’s biggest ever hits. Every week millions of loyal
fans
thrilled at the exploits of the debonair secret agent John Steed. With
his trademark bowler and brolly Steed would foil the diabolical plots
of fiendish villains. With more than a little help from his partners in
crime fighting, a succession of athletic high fashioned glamorous
women. The first was Cathy Gale
then along came Emma Peel
and then
there was Tara King.”
Honor Blackman (Cathy Gale):
“It
did advance the cause of feminism. Because up till then you had the odd
bitch and the murderess but you hadn’t had a woman who was
the
equal of the man.”
Joan
Collins: “The
Avengers created a surreal fantasy world all of its own. Everyone was
up classed and lived in luxurious Champaign lifestyle. But it was all
done with a wink and its tongue firmly in its cheek.”
Peter Bowles (Actor): “It
was an escapist world, surreal world, it was like going into a
painting, a surreal painting. It took you out of yourself.”
Joan
Collins: “In
The Avengers nothing and no one was normal.”
Peter
Bowles (Actor): “It
was pure entertainment, it was surprising at all times, and it was
English.”
Linda Thorson (Tara King):
“It
was a beautiful England that everyone wants to know. It was sunny,
people had wonderful things, wonderful cars, wonderful clothes, there
were flowers and it was an ideal England it wasn’t the dark
grey
cold place that people think of.”
Brian Clemens (Writer and Producer):
“The
Avengers lives and exists in its own world, no social problems, no
family problems. The only thing it was spoiling it from time to time
were diabolical masterminds who would try to take over the
world.”
Linda
Thorson
(Tara King): “The
plot sort of darted between the fantastic and the real with reckless
abandon. And no attention was paid whatsoever to the fact that the
plots were entirely wacky and mad and oddball.”
Brian
Clemens (Writer and Producer): “All
the women looked beautiful and all the men were stylish and charming
even the villains were charming.”
Joan
Collins: “It
was gloriously over the top but set against the bold new scientific
developments of the 1960’s it all seems strangely possible,
just
about.”
Philip
Purser (Television Critic): “I
suppose as distinct from say the James Bond canon it was si-fi rather
than spy-fi. The dialogue was crisp, funny, witty.”
Joan
Collins: “The
Avengers ran for nine years and in that time while production
techniques evolved and the girls came and went, Patrick Macnee was a
constant, he was the essential cornerstone of the entire Avengers
phenomenon.”
Honor
Blackman (Cathy Gale): “He
was a gentleman in all ways actually. Patrick was very well
cast.”
Joan
Collins: “Patrick
made John Steed as the epitamy of cool.”
Don
Leaver (Director): “How
the final character of Steed came, well that was due to Patrick.
Patrick’s father was a racehorse trainer and quite a dandy.
And
Patrick, realising that none of us had much idea what the character of
Steed was, built it for himself. He modelled it on his
father.”
Patrick
Macnee (John Steed): “Shrimp
Macnee his name was, he was a tiny man with a big stomach full of gin
and he always dressed impeccably.”
Brian
Clemens (Writer and Producer): “The
character Steed developed actually through Patrick, that’s
very
much his creation. I know that he based it in part on ‘Q
Planes’, which starred Ralph Richardson. And he was
playing a
kind of secret agent, he carried an umbrella, wore a full suit and a
homburg hat.”
Patrick
Macnee (John Steed): “I
wore a bowler hat because I thought it was a nice thing to wear. I had
an umbrella because it’s a very useful weapon. And you carry
an
umbrella and nobody thinks you are any trouble. Always be ready to
kill.”
Peter
Bowles (Actor): “Patrick
always gave a real full-blown wicked star performance of drama and
charm and masculinity.”
Philip
Purser (Television Critic): “Nobody
really knows who Steed was, he just emerged when he was needed. He was
not a member of the police force; he was not MI5 as far as anyone can
tell. He worked for some mysterious secret organization.”
Joan
Collins: “In
later episodes we discovered that John Steed worked for a mysterious
head of department called Mother
and naturally this being The Avengers
mother was a man.”
Brian
Clemens (Writer and Producer): “Mother
appeared in a variety of weird and wonderful places. In one episode his
office was on top of a bus. Each week I think people tuned in partly to
see the show but partly to see where we put Mother this time.”
Philip
Purser (Television Critic): “The
Americans took to The Avengers in a big way. And I think apart from the
fact that it was well done, it was quite exciting and it was amusing,
Steed fitted the common midwestern image of the English dude.”
Brian
Clemens (Writer and Producer): “They
feel the way Englishmen live is the way Steed lives. You know, with a
beautiful girl on his arm and drinking brandy and champagne and never
getting drunk.”
Joan
Collins:
“In the mid-sixties the series continued to push back the
accepted boundaries of storytelling. But when Emma Peel went undercover
as the queen of sin at the hellfire club whilst wearing nothing but
black knee length boots, a low-cut corset and a kinky collar,
that’s when the censors stepped in. 1966 saw The Avengers
fall
foul of the censors in Britain and America for one particular episode ‘A Touch of Brimstone’
Diana Rigg designed the costume for
Emma Peel’s latest undercover mission herself. She was posing
as
the queen of sin at a modern day hellfire club. The Producers got away
with the outfit just but the next scene was too much and it was heavily
cut but here it is, the full original version. The show had come a long
way from its first series when it was a straightforward gritty and
exclusively male thriller.”
Don
Leaver (Director): “The
title The Avengers came about because Ian
Hendry was playing a doctor
trying to avenge the death of his fiancée who’d
got caught
up in a drugs deal.”
Brian
Clemens (Writer and Producer): “And
he’s helped by a mysterious man from the ministry, John Steed
played by Patrick Macnee.”
Patrick
Macnee (John Steed): “I
was his sidekick for a long time and then he went off and became a
movie star and I was left all on my own. They said what are you going
to do, well I said what do you think we could do. And they said well
you could find somebody else, so I said who, I said should we have a
woman? A woman? At that time there wasn’t such a thing as a
woman
on television, you know. So, we looked around and we found Honor
Blackman.”
Don
Leaver (Director): “Honor
was absolutely marvellous because I’d always thought of her
prior
to her work with The Avengers rather as the English rose
type.”
Honor
Blackman (Cathy Gale): “Sweet
and lovely and boring.”
Don
Leaver (Director): “She
really took to all the judo, all physical stuff with tremendous
gleam.”
Patrick
Macnee (John Steed): “She
was the most un-male person I know, she was totally feminine and
extremely agile with the opposite sex and a delightful woman.”
Honor
Blackman (Cathy Gale): “Steed
was always making advances towards Cathy Gale and she always repelled
him but I think ... of course she liked him very much otherwise she
wouldn’t been involved with all the work they did. And I
think
she was quite amused, you know, that he would keep trying.”
Peter
Bowles (Actor): “It
was rehearsed and then shot in one go. It was live really.”
Honor
Blackman (Cathy Gale): “So
one ran from set to set changing ones clothes and all the rest. This
graveyard was build in the studio with an open grave and Jackie Pallo
who was a wrestler, we fight and I have to put my foot in his face and
kick and we were both getting very tired and when it got to that piece
I dawdled for a second and went for the shot. Instead of being  nice
and
putting my foot on his face and kicking, I just kicked and I split his
nose right down and his eyes crossed. I don’t know how but he
still remembered the next move and ran around and then he fell in the
grave. And he was out for seven-and-a-half minutes. I was walking
around the grave sobbing I never fight again.”
Joan
Collins: “When,
after two seasons, Honor decided to move on, the producers knew their
next Avengers girl had to continue in the vein as Cathy’s
self-assured action woman. But this time they also wanted her to
radiate even more in the way of man-appeal. That’s why they
called her M-appeal.”
Brian
Clemens (Writer and Producer): “I
wanted a slightly younger person an unknown. And we tested a lot of
young women and off course Diana
Rigg was head and shoulders above them
all.”
Patrick
Macnee (John Steed): “She
just was so exceptional she lighted on us like a butterfly on a flower,
you know. Well Dame Diana Rigg as she now is, is probably one of the
best actresses in the world. She has played opposite almost all the top
major actors. She’s a very supreme actress and a perfectly
darling person.”
Joan
Collins: “Emma
Peel brought with her a lighter touch, a jet set attitude to life and
stunning new specially designed fashions, oh and she drive behind the
wheel of the latest open top sports car. Suddenly after 51 episodes
Diana dropped a bombshell, despite earning two best-actress Emmy
nominations she was quitting the hottest show on British television to
return to the theatre. Leaving the producers to find another headline
raving Avengers girl. The actress they chose to play Tara King was
Linda Thorson.”
Linda
Thorson (Tara King): “It
was actually the first time, sort of in the history of any kind of
series where the leading character passes the baton over to the next
leading character on screen and I have to say I really loved doing the
episode and I loved this most quoted line (he likes his tea stirred
anti-clockwise). I was just death scared that
I wasn’t going to be accepted. And did get a lot of hate
mail:
How dare you think you could take over from Diana Rigg! It was really
awful and intimidating but I kind of carried on with great confidence.
And when the show came on the air people seemed to like Tara King so I
was very relieved.”
Patrick
Macnee (John Steed): “Some
of the eighteen or nineteen turns out looking like she did and you
don’t have any reaction, God I should be sent to another
planet.”
Linda
Thorson (Tara King): “Patrick
was really delighted that I was so different and I think quite
…
I mean it really immediately he saw that it was going to be very
different for him, he was going to be a different John Steed because
Tara King was in love with John Steed. Which was quite a change. And
you never knew what their romantic relationship was and you never knew
if she was making his tea because she’d just arrived in the
morning or whether she’d been there all night. And there was
real
violence but it was handled in a fantastical way.”
Brian
Clemens (Writer and Producer): “We
didn’t have blood. I always said I want the impression if we
killed someone that when we pan away that’s someone that
actor
gets up collects his pay check and goes home.”
Philip
Purser (Television Critic): “It’s
often dubbed cult, a cult entertainment, a cult attraction, a cult
fashion and indeed it was.”
Honor
Blackman (Cathy Gale): “It
goes on being popular, I think quite honestly because it’s
very good. I really think it is good.”
Peter
Bowles (Actor): “There’s
nothing like it, at all, and will there ever be again. There
won’t be another Pat Macnee.”
Patrick
Macnee (John Steed): “Well
I often been asked why The Avengers was so popular and my answer always
to this is because it was very good. It’s one of the best
shows
that have ever been made.”
Joan
Collins: “And
that’s my celebration of The Avengers, a truly unique elegant
and
chique ITV’s series which more than deserves his place in
television history. A fantasy world which surely could never exist
today. Here’s to Honor, Diana, Linda and off course Patrick,
The
Avengers."
Beschikbaarheid
Niet beschikbaar.
Screengrabs
© Talent Television / ITV
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 EXTERNE
LINKS |
|
 Credits |
Host: Joan
Collins
Consultant/Writer:
Colin Edmonds
Graphics:
Huge Designs
Archive:
Canal+ Image UK / Granada International
Wardrobe:
Carol Fitzwilliam
Hairstylist:
Jan Archibald
Make-Up:
Claire Degraft
Camera:
Stuart Clayton, Mike Farr, Anthony Leake
Sound: Matt
Johns, Chris Gibbions, Andy Shakallis
Editor:
Rory Ferguson
Colourist:
Graham Holtom
Dubbing Mixer:
Jon Stanton-Dunn
Post Production
Facilities: Molinare
Production Team:
Nicki Clarke Browne, Naomi Elkin
Researchers:
Paul Banks, Catherine Coleman, Iona Mackenzie
Archive Researchers:
Robert Heading, Suzanne Gray
Associate Producers:
Gemma Beeney, Michelle Foreman
Production Co-ordinator:
Emily Murfin
Line Producer:
Adam Hayes
Executive Producer:
Tony Humpheys
Series Producers:
John Kaye Cooper, Tony Nicholson
Producer/Director:
Tom Atkinson
© Talent TV 2005
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