Watch Video of Dame Diana Rigg's BFI Avengers Q&A

As we first heard back in September, the greatest female spy star of all time, Dame Diana Rigg (star of The Avengers and On Her Majesty's Secret Service) did a Q&A following a screening of a classic Avengers episode at the British Film Institute last week. I was so disappointed not to be able to fly to London for that event, but now BFI has been kind enough to put video of that Q&A (moderated by BFI curator Dick Fiddy) up on their website! She is completely open, candidly discussing a number of aspects of The Avengers and her career at large. Wearing a scarf that evokes the door to Emma Peel's flat, Rigg happily discusses a number of topics including her co-star, the late, great Patrick Macnee ("He was a deeply generous, dear, dear man, and I grieve his passing"), her predecessor Honor Blackman ("who's wonderful"), her character Emma Peel ("Dear God, was I lucky to get a chance to play this woman!"), the leather catsuits ("They were deeply uncomfortable, and hot, and sticky"), the cars ("they were very hard to drive!"), her delight at the remastering of the episodes on DVD ("I've been restored!"), the directors ("I was working with these brilliant men, and I didn't know it, and that is a great regret of mine, because I would have paid them homage had I known"), Emma's place in feminism ("I truly do think that she was a very, very potent influence in women claiming their place in the world"), Theater of Blood ("that film was such fun!"), Avengers writers ("Brian Clemens was brilliant"), On Her Majesty's Secret Service ("they had pots of money to spend on the Bond, which we didn't on The Avengers"), and George Lazenby ("George was not bad! He was not. He was just boring off [camera]!"). She also touches on The Sentimental Agent, "The Hothouse" (which she'd never seen), Euripides, Ian Hendry, Guy Hamilton, Vincent Price, Mark Gatiss, Doctor Who, and even Friends. This video is just so must-watch you shouldn't even still be on this page. Go watch it! Now! It's great!

Watched it? Great! Now for more on that auspicious day at BFI, check out a fan's perspective on meeting an icon at Home Arty Home, and then check out a collection of Avengers-inspired pop art that was on display at the event at Art & Hue. Great stuff! (Thanks to Art & Hue for the links.)

Austin Powers Returns... On Broadway?

The New York Post reports (via MI6) that, presumably having witnessed the success of his Shrek character on stage, Mike Meyers is in negotiations to bring Austin Powers to the Great White Way. "Myers, who [co-]wrote and starred in the three wildly popular movies, now hopes to turn groovy 1960s-era secret agent Powers into an all-singing, all-dancing theatrical production," according to the paper. Meyers himself would not star, but is expected to be "highly involved in writing the show." Rumors flared up earlier this year (as they do from time to time) that Myers is also hard at work on another Powers movie, which would be unrelated to the stage version. Personally, I enjoyed the heck out of the first movie, but found the sequels to be increasingly awful and the ubiquitous public imitations (brilliantly sent up by Ricky Gervais on the original Office) endlessly annoying. What started out as a really funny character was quickly done in by the worst sort of over-exposure, and I can't see a Broadway show (or another movie, for that matter), doing anything to rectify that problem. But maybe it will spur the studios to dig into their vaults and release more Sixties spy movies on DVD! If so, then I'm all for it. (Fox issued Modesty Blaise, Fathom and the Flint films for the first time to coincide with the theatrical release of Austin Powers in Goldmember.)

Tradecraft: USA Gets Page Eight in November

Deadline reports that the Ralph Fiennes/Bill Nighy BBC spy movie Page Eight will premiere on American television in November. It will air on PBS as part of their Masterpiece Contemporary series, debuting on November 6 at 9pm. According to the trade blog (and presumably coming directly from PBS at today's press event), Page Eight "stars Bill Nighy, Michael Gambon, Ralph Fiennes and Rachel Weisz in the story of an aging spy who stumbles onto an international scandal that could bring down the British government." As previously reported, it's written and directed by playwright David Hare (Saigon: Year of the Cat).

New Play About Patrick McGoohan

UK theatrical outfit Tip Top Productions presents a new play about the life of Patrick McGoohan, Everyman.  Everyman plays one night only in Chester at the Forum Studio Theatre next Thursday, January 13 at 8PM. Tickets are just £6.00 and can be booked through the theater's website. Here's the official synopsis:

"EVERYMAN: The Story Of Patrick McGoohan - The Prisoner" is a new play detailing the life of the theatre, television, and film star (who sadly died last year). Writer Brian Gorman believes that a theatrical tribute to the star of such cult tv favourites as DANGER MAN and THE PRISONER is long overdue.

Thanks to sambullus on the Eurospy Forum for the tip on this.

Rachel Weisz, Bill Nighy, Michael Gambon Join David Hare Spy Movie

Possibly irked at being left out of the new film remake of Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (which seems to star all of their peers), Bill Nighy and Michael Gambon have decided to make a high-brow spy movie of their own.  The Daily Mail's Baz Bamigboye reports that acclaimed playwright David Hare ("The Hours") has decided to try his hand at penning a spy movie.  And he's recruited first-rate actors to star in it.  Besides the great Nighy and Gambon (who once auditioned for the role of James Bond back in the Seventies), Oscar nominees (and former co-stars in John Le Carré's The Constant Gardener) Rachel Weisz and Ralf Fiennes will star in Hare's Page 8, which the writer will also direct.  According to the tabloid, "Bill Nighy will play an MI5 ­operative who believes [Weisz's] character could represent a threat to him. Michael Gambon will play the director general of the Security Service. Judy Davis, the celebrated ­Australian actress who rarely works outside her homeland, will also be in the film in an as yet unspecified role."  What's not totally clear from the article is whether this will be a theatrical film or one made for UK television.  BBC Films is producing (along with NBC Universal and Harry Potter mogul David Heyman), but BBC Films doesn't always mean TV; they've had plenty of theatrical releases.  I get the impression this is one of those. There's no question that the fantastic cast is film-caliber!

Bamigboye reveals some other intriguing details about Hare.  Apparently, the playwright (who previously penned the early Eighties Judi Dench spy film Saigon: Year of the Cat) is a spy fan, and wrote Page 8 basically because he saw a gap in bigscreen espionage entertainment and wanted to enhance his his own "pleasurable cinema-going." (He must have written it last year when there was a noticeable dearth of such movies in the theaters, as there've been a load of them this year.  But you can never have too many!)  Specifically, Hare misses James Bond (and who doesn't?), but it sounds like his own movie will, unsurprisingly, occupy more Le Carré territory.  And it just so happens that Hare and Le Carré are neighbors!  According to Bamigboye, "Hare revealed that Le Carré offered to read the Page 8 script, telling Hare: ‘I promise to be withering.’ Hare added: ‘That put me in my place. I wouldn’t dare give the screenplay to Le Carré. I’d be absolutely terrified to show him what I’ve come up with.’" Well, I, for one, am very curious to see what he's come up with!

Upcoming Spy DVDs: An Englishman Abroad And A Question Of Attribution

Hot on the heels of announcing MI-5: Volume 8, the BBC America Shop Blog has also announced Alan Bennett's Cambridge Spies teleplays "An Englishman Abroad" and "A Question of Attribution" for release on Region 1 DVD in early spring of next year.  "An Englishman Abroad," filmed for television in 1983 and directed by John Schlesinger, follows English actress Coral Browne (playing herself) on a cultural exchange in Moscow where she meets a mysterious Englishman.  He turns out to be exiled double agent Guy Burgess, one of the notorious Cambridge Spies.  Bennett's play reimagines the real conversations they had on all sorts of subjects, exploring Burgess' extreme homesickness and his motives for betraying his country.  Charles Grey also appears.  Bennett's fascination with the Cambridge spy ring continued in "A Question of Attribution" (1991), also directed by Schlesinger.  In that play, James Fox plays Sir Anthony Blunt, who served as Surveyor of the Queen's Pictures even after his private confession of espionage.  "A Question of Attribution" imagines a conversation between the spy and the Queen (Fawlty Towers' Prunella Scales). Geoffrey Palmer (Tomorrow Never Dies) also appears.  These two plays and eight others were released on R2 DVD in Britain as Alan Bennett at the BBC; the same collection will be released here as An Englishman Abroad - The Alan Bennett Collection. And of course this announcement comes right after I imported the UK version! D'oh.

Tradecraft: Christopher Marlowe, Spy

The Hollywood Reporter reports that Sam Riley (Control, Brighton Rock) has been tapped to play one of history's most famous celebrity spies--playwright Christopher Marlowe. Michael Elias has adapted Anthony Burgess' novel A Dead Man in Deptford for the screen, and Nick Copus (the Day of the Triffids remake) will direct. Almost-Saint James Purefoy will co-star, along with Ray Winstone (Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, Edge of Darkness), Ed Speleers (Eragon) and Adam Sinclair. Burgess is probably most famous for his novel A Clockwork Orange, though he also wrote an unused early draft for the Bond movie The Spy Who Loved Me, and later introduced some late-90s UK paperback editions of Ian Fleming's 007 novels. A Dead Man in Deptford, his final novel, reinforces his interest in spies.  According to the trade, "the movie will play with the idea that Marlowe, a notorious bar room brawler, was also a royal spy for Elizabeth I [a fairly widely-held idea, abely supported by Charles Nicholl in his Marlowe biography) and that his death in Deptford at age 29 may have been an assassination ordered by the English Secret Service." I've always been fascinated with the spy angle of Marlowe's career (and Elizabethan espionage in general), though I haven't read that novel.  I'm certainly excited for the movie, though!  Production is scheduled to begin in the spring.

Rupert Everett previously played Marlowe in a memorable cameo in Shakespeare in Love.

The 39 Steps Stageplay Opens In Los Angeles

When the comedic stage adaptation of the classic John Buchan spy novel and Alfred Hitchcock film opened on Broadway two years ago, I lamented being stuck in Los Angeles, far away from America's theater capital.  (In my frustration, I may have even used the term "smog-bubble" to describe a city I actually love. For this I now apologize.)  Well, now Angelenos can finally enjoy this production that's played London and New York and elsewhere to rave reviews.  "The 39 Steps" is running at LA's Ahmanson Theater downtown from April 27 to May 16, 2010. Nodding to the book, but apparently owing more to the first of several film adaptations of the material, The Hollywood Reporter noted when it opened on Broadway that "this particular adaptation is an almost scene-for-scene spoof/interpretation of Hitchcock's 1935 movie version that starred Robert Donat and Madeleine Carroll." The procuction uses a cast of only four actors and minimal sets to, apparently, great effect. Tickets are available through the Ahmonson's website.

New DVDs Out Today: Sean Connery's Stab At Shakespeare

I had no idea that this was coming out! I had no idea that it had even survived the BBC's notorious policy of "wiping" tapes of old programs in the Sixties. It's not a spy movie, but it is one of the rarest, most sought-after (well, by me, at any rate... surely there are others?) early performances by the King of the Spies himself, Sir Sean Connery... as Hotspur! And, as reported by the LA Times (via CommanderBond.net), it's out on DVD in the United States today! (Courtesy of BBC/Warner.) Off the top of my head, I think this is Connery's only filmed take on the Bard. The Times offers up a brief description of Shakespeare's An Age of Kings, which was a fifteen-part BBC series compiling "eight of Shakespeare's historical plays -- all of "Richard II," both parts of "Henry IV" and "Henry V," all three parts of "Henry VI" and "Richard III" -- and spans the history of the British monarchy between 1377 to 1485." It aired in 1960 in England and 1961 in America, on public television. Like most British TV programming of its time, it was shot live on video in black and white, so don't expect Kenneth Branagh production values. Besides Connery, the series also features Bond vets Julian Glover and Judi Dench. Robert Hardy plays Prince Hal. The DVD retails for $49.98, though Amazon has it for $34.99.

"The 39 Steps" On Broadway

Being isolated in the smog-bubble of L.A. is advantageous in terms of keeping up with film and television news (and for the opportunity to see lots of classics on the big screen), but may also be why I'm a little behind on my theater. As sophisticated New Yorkers and Londoners will no doubt already be aware (but I only just became), John Buchan's seminal spy novel The 39 Steps has been adapted into a play and is now on Broadway. Only it's not Buchan who gets the possessive; it's Alfred Hitchcock. The Hollywood Reporter explains that thusly: "The Hitch reference comes from the fact that though 'Steps' initially was a 1915 novel by John Buchan, this particular adaptation is an almost scene-for-scene spoof/interpretation of Hitchcock's 1935 movie version that starred Robert Donat and Madeleine Carroll." Robert Osborne, The Reporter's reviewer, goes on to rave about the production, which apparently uses a cast of only four actors and minimal sets to great effect. I hope this is still running next time I manage to get to New York; I'm anxious to check it out! In the meantime, I and any other interested parties can satisfy our curiosity with a number of clips from the production available on the theater's website. (They also have the entire movie available for free online viewing.)

Theater Review: "The Burlesque Of Bond"

Last weekend I finally made it down to Orange County to see director Brian Newell’s "Burlesque of Bond" show at the Maverick Theater. The concept ("Bond Girls" per-forming burlesque numbers reminiscent of the opening titles of the films to their theme songs) is an excellent one, but could have easily gone either way in execution. I’m happy to report that Newell and his per-formers pulled it off!

"The Burlesque of Bond" is an impressively mounted production. Four female dancers (the night I saw it, anyway; five are credited in the program: Amanda Hatch, Lisa Stier, Alyssa Marie Webb, Lisa Marie Crisci and Whitney Finell) perform well-choreographed, tasteful stripteases (no actual nudity here!) inspired by the film whose song they’re dancing to. None of the women appeared to be professional burlesque dancers, but all of them were certainly game and gave it their all. The choreography may not have always been in perfect synch, but the performances were nonetheless uniformly praiseworthy, aided by top-rate production design.

Some of the numbers were performed behind a semi-opaque screen with video images projected on it. (Make sure you select a seat at a middle table for optimal view.) The Maurice Binder-inspired video was so expertly shot that for a moment I wondered if they were actually using snippets from one of Daniel Kleinman’s recent title sequences! The dancers on stage interacted perfectly with the foreground video elements and sparse-but-appropriate sets and costumes to create a vibrant, live action version of a James Bond title sequence. Of course, none of that would have worked were the singers not up to the unenviable task of belting out the very difficult vocals made famous by the likes of Shirley Bassey and Duran Duran... and, fortunately, the were! Two vocalists–a man (Ryan Coon) and a woman (Rebecca J. Hyrkes)–sat in with the band mostly out of sight on a platform raised above the stage. Hyrkes was especially impressive, coming up short only on Goldfinger, a song so difficult–and so identified with one inimitable voice–that few have ever attempted to cover it. Her best performance of a stellar batch came on that other "gold" standard, Goldeneye. (The Man With The Golden Gun was omitted, so we didn’t get to see any dancers interpret the inane lyrics, "Who will he bang? We shaaalllllll seeeeeeeee!")

In true burlesque fashion, the whole evening was hosted by two goofy secret agents in tuxes (Nathan Makaryk and Sean Coutu) with over-the-top British accents of the Bertie Woosterish "jolly good show!" variety. Their jokes consisted mostly of intentionally terrible puns, and the fact that about half of them hit and half fell flat felt perfectly appropriate for the occasion. Highlights included a routine about ordering drinks ("I’ll have a Smirnoff Ice... open, not closed. You don’t want to shake this! I’d end up with sweet but delicious beer all over me.") and a lengthy dialogue utilizing every Bond title, chronologically, in increasingly tedious puns ("Make sure your gun is cocked..." "Oh, pussy!"). Low points included a joke about a tuxedo designed by Q that enabled its wearer to urinate without removing it. This music hall banter came in mercifully short segments between the dance numbers.

The show opened with the four Bond Girls (each given a name that leaned more toward the burlesque than the Bond (but could fit either in a pinch), like Keena Klimax or Ida Luvlong) firing at the audience and then removing some clothing to the Parodi/Fair version of the James Bond Theme from the Goldeneye trailer. After that, some numbers used all four; others showcased just one or two. A View To A Kill found them following the lyrics quite literally and dancing into the fire, which was projected on the transparent screen. (Only a few of the numbers used the screen.) For Your Eyes Only incorporated underwatery projections and Moonraker was a solo ballet in front of a huge full moon. Goldeneye switched spy allegiances to Alias, with each of the girls sporting Sidney Bristow-ish wigs and performing sexy dances involving chairs. Goldfinger started off strong featuring a girl in a skin-tight gold bodysuit (I guess they bought into the rumors of Shirley Eaton’s skin suffocation and chose to avoid gold paint–or maybe they just needed a quick change!) but got kind of weird at the end with the Golden Girl basically doing the Egyptian and the Robot. (Not a high point in the choreography.)

Tomorrow Never Dies took a fresh approach, with the dancer herself performing the song. (She did a good job, and I wish I could give her due credit, but the program doesn’t make it clear which dancer was singing.) Lyrically, this makes sense, with the mournful opening, "Darling, I’m killed/I’m in a puddle on the floor/waiting for you to return." She’s joined by a Bond (Ryan Joseph), who she pines after throughout the number but whose eye is always easily turned by the other dancers. It was really a very good interpretation of the song. Bond appears Casino Royale poster-style, in a tux with his tie undone, but the tux has a wing-tip collar, which isn’t very Bondian. (I’m guessing Clint’s Tux, who earns the costume credit, doesn’t stock Brioni.) He’s also wearing a vest, which looks kind of lame when he strips off his coat midway through. (Don’t worry; 007 doesn’t get any nakeder than that!)

Act One concludes with a very nice arrangement of On Her Majesty’s Secret Service and 007 (both instrumentals), followed by You Know My Name. Coon does a good job standing in for Chris Cornell on the blustery vocals, with Hyrkes contributing the "Spin of the wheel!" echo in a nice touch. This number included the least Bondian costumes, mostly of the leather variety. (I don’t think we’ve ever seen a Bond Girl in buttless chaps!) It also, bizarrely, featured a poncho. (Perhaps an obscure reference to Moore’s silly undercover get-up in Moonraker? Newell proves himself a big enough Bond fan that I’m willing to give him the benefit of the doubt!) Despite the strange costumes (and don’t get me wrong–I’m not complaining about beautiful women in leather!), You Know My Name was truly a show-stopping routine, with the girls firing large guns (shooting blanks, of course) at the audience and then at a Bond silhouette target (ala the opening gun barrel). The projections (behind them, this time) were so well timed that their shots even left "bullet holes"!)

After more banter from the hosts and an intermission, Act Two upped the ante with more risque routines. You Only Live Twice (with Dr. Shatterhand’s pagoda castle AND Blofeld’s volcano forming the background in silhouette!) saw the dancer finally shrug out of her skimpy kimono, ending up topless, but facing away from the audience in classic burlesque style, and faithfully preserving the "tease" in "striptease." Similarly, the dancer performing the Vegas showgirl-inspired Diamond Are Forever also lost her top, only to playfully cover up with giant white feathers. Exiting the stage, she tossed the feathers aside... as she wrapped herself up in the curtain.

The same girl who sang Tomorrow Never Dies also performed The World Is Not Enough on stage, in the same costume, seemingly inspired by the belly dancers in From Russia With Love. Again, she did a great job. From Russia With Love itself featured the only musical gender reversal, with Hyrkes impressively handling the vocals in a manner similar to Natacha Atlas’s cover version on Shaken And Stirred. The dancer stripped out of a Russian army uniform and large fur hat in an especially sultry routine. Hosts Makaryk and Coutu returned for another kind of gender reversal, doing a comedy striptease of their own to an instrumental version of Thunderball. They actually got more naked than any of the girls ever did, but fortunately managed to keep things JUST the right side of the fine line between "comical" and "disturbing." Again, it was a scene that would have been right at home in an old time burlesque show.

Nobody Does It Better rounded out the second act, and Live And Let Die served as a grand finale as big as those of the films themselves. Bond returned (with tie this time) and took on a succession of spear-toting girls in costumes inspired by Octopussy’s circus girls. This was very much an "action dance," with one woman wielding a whip against 007. Another stripped down to a Honey Rider bikini to audience applause, only to fight Bond with a knife as the columns that formed the set for this number began collapsing all around them in explosions as smoke filled the stage!

"The Burlesque of Bond" is a loving tribute to Bond movies and a successful, original staging of what could be unfilmed opening title sequences. It’s also an entertaining burlesque show, sexy and risque, but completely tasteful, with healthy doses of cheesy humor. Los Angeles area Bond fans shouldn’t miss it. It’s worth braving the 5 at rush hour for. The bad news, unfortunately, is that it closes tomorrow (July 14) in its current incarnation; the good news is that the Maverick Theater hopes to keep it running on a weekly basis in a slightly truncated, hour-long format, with a few different numbers, Saturday nights at 10. Be sure to check their website for updates.

Theater Review: "The Defenders"

Ostensibly a parody of The Avengers and the many other "-ers" of Sixties spy TV, Brian Frette’s "The Defenders" falls wildly short of the mark. Things started off promising enough, with a decent (if rather uninspired) logo on the program and an impressive, expressionist set. The floor was a black and white chessboard, like in the American Avengers title sequence, and the walls and doors towered above it at crooked angles like something out of a classic, surreal Avengers episode like "The House That Jack Built" or "The Joker."

"Nicely done," I thought. According to the program, the decidedly un-Steedish Steedly hero was named "St. John-Smythe," Again I smiled, recollecting that that was Roger Moore’s alias in A View To A Kill when he was undercover with Patrick Macnee’s Sir Godfrey Tibbett. Clearly, the writer knew his spies. The play opened with a fairly clever montage of imaginative assassinations. So far, so good. Furthermore, the show’s many Asian characters were all played by white actors–a very funny, subtle nod to the dearth of actual Asian actors (Burt Kwouk not withstanding) on Sixties British TV... or so I thought.

As the storyline got underway and the atrocious accents began in earnest, I started to rethink my original suppositions. It seemed more and more like the playwright had seen just a few episodes of The Avengers a while ago, and then mostly ignored them while writing his play. I realized I must have been giving him too much credit for all those little details. Surely they were coincidences! And the white actors? Not a nod, I’m afraid; just a similar lack of access to actual Asians. A gay Steed-alike and an overweight Mrs. Peel-alike were good ideas, but they failed to pay off in jokes or story, and seemed instead designed to give the writer/director/star a chance to prance around in extremely, unnecessarily tight tights and cast his best friend as the leading lady, Russian agent Carrington Lovegrove (Christine Deaver).

Rather than play with Steed’s iconic, bowler-hatted Edwardian English gentleman image, Frette opted for a kabuki and kimono wardrobe for his hero. The kabuki make-up was both poorly conceived and poorly executed, the latter compounding the former. For most of the play St. John-Smythe went around with a vaguely powdery face, and whatever the unclear intention, it only appeared unprofessional and served to distract. The play’s limited wit was more targeted at foibles of modern life, like cell phones going off in theatres, than at the broad, implied target of Sixties cult TV.

Still, a few things did work. Deaver has an excellent voice which was put to good use when Lovegrove went undercover at a nightclub, and the choreography was fairly impressive. In addition to a well-executed tango sequence, all of the fights were staged with a mixture of ballet, modern dance and occasional martial arts moves. Some of the performers were quite adept at this, and pulled off dangerous-looking flips and leaps. These fights were entertaining at first, but soon outstayed their welcome, some lasting for what seemed as long as ten minutes.

An early scene in which St. John-Smythe and Lovegrove trade rapid verbal barbs while competing in various, increasingly silly games successfully recalled the Steed/Peel banter (at least until Deaver broke a cup–and broke character). The real highlight of the play, though, was actor Joe Seely as Birdie, the crippled aid to a scene-stealing, Mother-like male spy boss named Auntie... who happens to be a puppet, controlled by Seely. Auntie and Birdie were one of the few touches that really did manage to fully capture the unique quirkiness of The Avengers. Seely not only managed the best British accent in the play, but pulled off some impressive bits of physical comedy when his handicapped character gained the shaky ability to walk.

Unfortunately, even this enjoyable performance is not enough to recommend "The Defenders," I’m afraid. If it ever comes to your area (I think it’s due in San Francisco next), you’re better off saving your money and your time. "The Defenders" fails both as a piece of theater and as a spy send-up.

A Zoo District Production, reviewed at "[Inside] the Ford" Theater in Los Angeles on March 23, 2007