Network Announces Zoo Gang Soundtrack

Well, we're getting closer... but it's still not The Persuaders!  Network's latest music release is, however (just like The Persuaders!), a soundtrack to a colorful Seventies ITC show with incidental music composed by the terrific (and sadly underrated) Ken Thorne and a theme by a former James Bond composer. The Bond composer - or composers, I suppose - in question is not John Barry but Paul and Linda McCartney, who of course wrote the great theme song for Live And Let Die the previous year.  The show is The Zoo Gang, a short-lived 1974 adaptation of a Paul Gallico novel starring pensioners Brian Keith, John Mills, Lilli Palmer and The Adventurer's Mr. Parminter himself Barry Morse as a quartet of former French resistance fighters reunited to take revenge on the man who betrayed them to the Nazis thirty years earlier.  They like working together again and stick around the South of France long enough to take on the usual sort of ITC foes: extortionists, counterfeiters and the like.  It's not a spy show, but like any ITC show there are plenty of spy elements to it nonetheless.  It's entertaining, and one day I'll have to write more about the series.  (My favorite episode guest stars the great Peter Cushing.)  I don't recall the Thorne music included on The Best of ITC making too much of an impression on me, but the multiple versions of the fantastic theme song were impressive.  I'm sure this 2-disc set will be well worth listening to.  It may be the closest thing we ever get to a Persuaders! soundtrack (which regular readers will be aware I long for)... or it may be another sign (following the recent Saint release) that Network is slowly working their way toward such a release!  (I refuse to believe the tapes are all lost!)  Like all of Network's ITC soundtrack releases, this one will feature "extensive liner notes" by British television expert Andrew Pixley.  Retail is £19.99 (currently on sale for £15.99) and The Zoo Gang: Original Soundtrack will be available from Network's website on June 28.