The Avengers: They Keep Killing Steed/Too Many Olés and Another Podcast Recommendation

In my last post about an Avengers episode in which I compared the TV version with the Springbok Radio version, I commented that the Springbok versions used the actual scripts of the TV series, and so often represent an earlier stage of development of the show than the TV versions do. This is especially the case with They Keep Killing Steed. I am indebted to the dissolute.com.au site for the script and all sorts of other information for this blog post, and frankly you might as well go over there and read it there because this post will be highly derivative.

Not to put too fine a point on it, I could kick myself that I have listened to the Springbok Radio version of this in the past and never wondered why it was set in Spain instead of England. However now I know it's because Brian Clemens set it in Spain and wanted it filmed on location, which for economy reasons was changed to a gravel pit in Blighty. Not only that, but the script is a delight and actually gives the recipe for Avengerland right at the start of the script:

'(NOTE TO DIRECTOR: Although we are shooting abroad we MUST MAINTAIN "The Avengers" tradition when shooting outside - we are creting a limbo, de-populated world - and, even though the traditionally dressed passer-by might add local colour to the scene, we must resist the temptation and, wherever possible, keep the svenes empty of all people not directly concerned in the plot. BUT an apparently driverless donkey cart - the driver by inference asleep in the back - would be perfectly acceptable.' (Source: Brian Clemens's script for They Keep Killing Steed, p. 1.)

Well swipe me, he wanted to move Avengerland to Spain for this one. What a fascinating idea!

The script notes that 'even abroad [Steed] remains the English gentleman - bowler, umbrella, etc. (p. 4)', and Steed is very proud that he has learned the Spanish for 'my grandfather's ear trumpet has been struck by lightning (p. 5)!' This is despite him being able to speak to the Spanish Secret Service in fluent Spanish. Seriously, I think you should stop reading this blog post because your life would be better spent downloading the script from the dissolute site and reading it!

Not only does the script perfectly embody the ethos of The Avengers, but it accentuates that Brian Clemens couldn't half write. In the sequence where we see the various men putting on their helmets to transform themselves into Steed in their different locations, there is something which comes across far more effectively in the script than in either the TV or radio version, which is the way Clemens describes the different hotel rooms the men are in. One is a fusty hotel room, one a seedy hotel room, one a dingy hotel room, and one a dusty hotel room (p. 22). Seeing these descriptions coming one after the other on one page of the script is very effective and brings to mind a slightly different type of hotel room for each one, but all awful.

Major changes from the script in the TV version include that the baddies' headquarters are in an abandoned bullring instead of a quarry. But get this one, because you'll love it. I thought it was sufficiently Avengers that Mother had an underwater headquarters in the TV version, and indeed that is very Avengers indeed. However it will be to my eternal sorrow that the TV people didn't slavishly follow the script here, because Mother's headquarters are in a gypsy caravan and he has a sign outside saying 'MOTHER X - FORTUNES TOLD - PALMS READ'. Let THAT picture come to the mind's eye and try to tell me that isn't the most wonderful thing ever! This magnificent scene is carried over, just without a description of the fortune teller sign, into part 3 of the radio version, so you can listen to it even if you can't see it.

You will see from the commentary on both dissolute and IMDB that the reduction in costs wasn't only in filming the show here instead of in Spain, but that it reused parts of sets, stock effects, sounds, and of course the famous bridge. Mind you, using that bridge may not really be considered reusing because they filmed afresh at the bridge, and it did after all manage to get into so many TV shows and films at the time.

One thing which I think is much better in the radio version is of course that you don't get to see Ian Ogilvy as the owner of the house who is always getting himself into trouble with women. I know his role is a favourite with the fans, at least going by the online commentary, and I certainly have no objection to Ogilvie as such or his acting here, but it's the hair. He's supposed to be an obscenely wealthy man, but they've given him cheap bottle blonde peroxide hair so that he looks like a rent boy. Much better without him in that case.

A further interesting change which is different in both the TV and radio versions from the script, is that the script doesn't have the tag scene, just saying that it is to follow. Clements must have written it after the rest of the script, and I note that it is the same in TV and radio so must have been posted to South Africa with the rest of the script.

It is interesting to see some of the work behind the scenes on making an episode of The Avengers and then turning it into a radio programme afterwards. My only sorrow with this one is not to see Mother done up as a fortune teller: the underwater headquarters is positively boring in comparison.

A Podcast Recommendation

I seem to be finding all sorts of interesting things online at the moment! In this case Danielle Kirsty is a true crime and makeup YouTuber. And I do mean both at once. I had no idea how much seeing her putting on makeup while talking about cults would add to the experience, but you're much better watching her well-researched podcasts in their YouTube version than in their podcast version, and you can do so here: https://m.youtube.com/@DanielleKirsty11/videos

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