Cover Art for Big Finish's Steed & Mrs. Peel Comic Strip Collection

Ever since Big Finish first announced they'd be adapting the Sixties Avengers comics that ran in UK comics magazine Diana (no relation to Rigg), I've been looking forward to their promised trade paperback collection of those gorgeous original comics even more than the adaptations themselves. But it's been a long wait. On the Big Finish website, the collection is still available for pre-order and touted as "out in November..." yet there's very little of November left! (Volume 2 of the Steed and Emma audio dramas also has yet to materialize.) But it is coming. There are now pre-order listings on Amazon and Amazon UK as well, which both state a December 31, 2016 release date. Comixology has a digital version solicited for February 2017. But this snappy cover art would seem to indicate that the book is finally on its way to being a reality, whenever it actually materializes. The rather simplistic stories, intended for children and running just a scant six pages each (originally delivered in two-page installments), aren't very memorable, but Emilio Frejo's artwork is truly stunning, and I can't wait to have an archival collection of it for my bookshelf!

In addition to the 1966-67 comics themselves (listed under the titles Big Finish used for their audio versions), the 96-page trade paperback includes an introduction by Big Finish's David Richardson, interviews with actors Julian Wadham and Olivia Poulet (who voice Steed and Emma, respectively, in the audio adaptations), and an article entitled "From Strip to Script" by Kenny Smith, editor of Big Finish's magazine Vortex.

Read my reviews of two of these Diana comics ("Return to Castle De'ath" and "The Miser," as they're now known—though you won't find any reference to the fantastic Season 4 episode "Castle De'ath" in the strip itself; that connection was a stroke of genius on Big Finish's part for their expanded audio version) on the superb website The Avengers Illustrated.

Big Finish Finds Their Emma Peel

Ever since Big Finish announced they'd be following their fantastic series of Avengers audio dramas based on the lost first season Steed and Dr. Keel episodes with an Emma Peel series, we've been waiting to hear who would step into Diana Rigg's kinky boots. This weekend the company announced that The Thick of It's Olivia Poulet will play the role opposite Julian Wadham, reprising his role as John Steed from The Lost Episodes. (Thank goodness! Wadham is amazing, striking the perfect balance between homaging the generally inimitable Patrick Macnee, and putting his own spin on the role.) Poulet, whose credits also include Sherlock, In the Loop, and Dead Air, will give voice to Mrs. Peel in eight audio adaptations of the comics that originally ran in the UK children's magazine Diana in 1966 and '67. (Read my reviews of some of those comics here.) The Avengers: Steed and Mrs. Peel - The Comic Strip Adaptations will be released in April 2016, and is available to pre-order now. Judging from the titles alone, Big Finish has already improved on the original comics! And I'm sure they will in many more ways spinning 6-page stories aimed at kids into hour-long audio dramas for adults. (I love that they've tied in the first, Scottish-set story with one of my favorite TV episodes ever, "Castle De'ath.") I can't wait to hear, and to here Ms. Poulet's repartee with Wadham. Here are the descriptions Big Finish provides for the first batch of episodes:

1. Return to Castle De'ath by Simon Barnard and Paul Morris

Steed is left hanging, Emma pays the piper

2. The Miser by Simon Barnard and Paul Morris

Steed has a nasty scare, Emma has a pressing engagement

3. The Golden Dresses by Paul Magrs

Emma hits the heights of fashion and Steed plumbs the very depths

4. The Norse Code by John Dorney

Steed has the horns of a dilemma, Emma milks her moment

Thanks to David for the heads-up on this news!

Big Finish Announces Prisoner Voice Cast

Big Finish, the production company behind the excellent audio dramas based on the lost first season episodes of The Avengers, has officially announced the voice cast of their upcoming Prisoner project, which the company is now referring to as an "audio revival." The identity of the actors, in particular the star, had been kept under wraps when the company released the teaser last month. Mark Elstob, a stage actor best known for his performances in Sir Peter Hall’s "Hamlet" and Octopussy villain Steven Berkoff’s "Salome" (as well as a stint on Emmerdale), will play the lead role of Number 6, the character originated on the classic Sixties TV show by Patrick McGoohan,

Writer/director and producer Nicholas Briggs claims to have "looked further and wider than [he'd] ever done for any Big Finish casting" to find the right man to step into McGoohan's shoes. I hope he's right in his ultimate decision! I was unconvinced by the snippets we heard in that teaser, but I'd like to be proven wrong. Julian Wadham set the high water mark with his performance as Steed in The Avengers, which was simultaneously fresh and respectful of Patrick Macnee's legacy. I hope Elstob manages the same feat. According to Briggs, Elstob is a massive fan of the original series.

Following the template established by the TV show, the audio series will feature a series of different actors taking on the authority figure in The Village of Number 2. In the first batch of episodes, Number 6 will match wits with John Standing (V for Vendetta), Celia Imrie (Highlander), Ramon Tikaram (My Spy Family) and Michael Cochrane (The Iron Lady).

According to the Big Finish announcement, "Other inhabitants of The Village include Sara Powell as Number 9, Kristina Buikaite as Number 8 and Jez Fielder as Number 17 — with Helen Goldwyn as the Village Voice, Jim Barclay as Control and Barnaby Edwards as Number 2’s diminutive butler. Sarah Mowat plays the role of Zero-Six-Two, a former accomplice of Number 6."

The Prisoner: Volume 1 comes out in January 2016 and is available to pre-order now on the Big Finish website as a CD set or digital download. The debut set contains four one-hour episodes, a Behind-the-Scenes audio documentary, and (in the physical version) a lavish color booklet.

Teaser: The Prisoner Audio Drama from Big Finish

Big Finish have released a teaser for their first set of original audio dramas based on The Prisoner. But in the tradition of the classic Sixties TV show, it's rather enigmatic. Per their own Facebook page: "Today, we’re being as cryptic as the original series. We’re not announcing the casting, but we’re giving you the opportunity to hear some of them and to see them in this great bit of artwork by Tom Webster. We're re-imagining the original 1967 TV series. It isn't a continuation. We've ‘recreated’ it from the very beginning (and, hopefully, one day, until the end). It’s different, but it’s very much in the spirit of the original. So, it’s something old and something new. Our aim is to make you fall in love with this tremendous series all over again." Hm. Well, I love the artwork... though I can't identify the actor filling Patrick McGoohan's shoes as Number 6. Can you? If so, please comment! (And please explain why he isn't wearing a turtleneck!) I have to be honest: I'm a little disappointed he's not doing more of a Patrick McGoohan impression in the audio. Of course I want him to add his own spin, but I would have at least liked McGoohan's unique cadence in his delivery. But I'm sure I'll quickly get used to the new Number 6 in the course of the audio dramas. Pre-order the first set from Big Finish today.

Big Finish to Produce New Steed and Mrs. Peel Audio Dramas; Classic Sixties Avengers Comics to be Reprinted

For the past two years, UK company Big Finish has been producing top-notch, full cast audio dramas (what we might have once called radio shows) recreating the lost episodes from the almost entirely missing first season of The Avengers. These episodes predate any of gentleman secret agent John Steed's more famous female partners like Cathy Gale or Emma Peel, and find him teamed with a male amateur instead—Dr. David Keel. On TV Dr. Keel was played by Ian Hendry, and Steed was of course played by the incredible Patrick Macnee. In the Big Finish audio dramas, Anthony Howell (Foyle's War) and Julian Wadham (Double Identity) step into those respective roles and do so as perfectly as any fan could hope for. Steed in particular is at once instantly recognizable as Macnee's Steed, and yet at the same time very much Wadham's. It's a brilliant interpretation.

Last month the company (who made their name producing quality Doctor Who audio adventures) announced the next phase of their Avengers license. Alongside the continuing Lost Episodes line of recreated first season episodes, they will introduce Steed's most famous partner, Mrs. Emma Peel (originated on the series by the frankly inimitable Diana Rigg). Wadham will continue to play Steed, and the company are currently searching for an actress to play Emma. Presumably it has not escaped their attention that the perfect choice would be Dame Diana's daughter, Rachel Sterling (The Game)! She actually sounds quite a lot like her mother while being a supremely talented actress in her own right, who would no doubt bring the same blend of new and old to the role that Wadham does with Steed. I suppose it's possible that Ms. Sterling might not wish to step into her mother's most famous role, but she's shown no qualms in the past about aligning her career with Rigg's. She played Rigg's role from the film in a stage version of Theater of Blood, and appeared alongside her mother in familial roles on a recent episode of Doctor Who. Yes, Rachel Sterling would be the perfect choice to revive Emma Peel in new audio dramas! I hope it happens.

But what are these dramas based on, if all the Emma Peel era episodes thankfully survive? In an interesting choice, Big Finish will adapt them from the Avengers comics that ran in the UK children's magazine Diana (not named after Rigg) from 1966-67. That's... an interesting choice. The Diana comics are highly sought after and well worth reading, but that's for their gorgeous artwork (by Emilio Frejo), not for their stories. The storylines tended to be rather sophomoric, relying on the cliches of kiddie comics of the era rather than the sophisticated wit of the TV series. (One adventure saw Steed and Emma protecting England from a new wave of Viking invasions, a theme that seemed to weigh heavily on the minds of British children in the Sixties. That plot was, if you can believe it, used twice in Avengers comics, and also in comics based on other popular spy shows of the decade!) Since the artwork can obviously not be translated into an audio drama, the story is the aspect that will carry over. Luckily, each of the eight Diana storylines ran for only six pages, spread out over the course of three issues. So Big Finish's writers will have plenty of room for embellishment and improvement in the course of adapting them into hour-long audio dramas! The advantage the comics had over the TV show was that they weren't restricted by budget, and so we saw things like ski chases and helicopter crashes that simply wouldn't have worked on the series. The best place to learn more about these comics, including complete synopses of each one, is on the wonderful website The Avengers Illustrated. You can even read my reviews (as a contributor, before I had my own spy blog) on the first two Diana stories there! (My review of Story 1, and Story 2. And for fun, but with no bearing on this news story, you can also read my reviews of some New Avengers comics here.) You can also see examples of Frejo's beautiful artwork.

Which brings me to the other exciting aspect of this venture. In addition to putting out audio dramas based on the comics, Big Finish will also publish a graphic novel collecting all of those rare and sought after Diana comics for the first time ever! This is huge news in its own right. None of the Sixties Avengers comics have ever been reprinted before. (Though Boom! Studios have done a great job of collecting the 90s Steed and Mrs. Peel comics by Grant Morrison along with several volumes of their own current take on the characters.) It will be great to have all that beautiful Frejo Avengers artwork bound together in a single bookshelf volume! (I wonder if it would be possible for Big Finish to secure the rights to the terrific black and white comic strip "The Growing Up of Emma Peel," which ran in the comics anthology June and followed the adventures of 14-year-old Emma Knight long before she ever married pilot Peter Peel or met the mysterious John Steed? It would make a fantastic bonus feature in such a collection!)

Now for the bad news: all of this is a long way off. A whole year away in fact. According to Big Finish's website, the eight episodes of The Avengers - Steed and Mrs Peel: The Comic Strip Adaptations will be released over two box sets in April and November of 2016, and the graphic novel will also be out that November. All of them can currently be pre-ordered in various configurations, as either digital downloads or lavish CD box sets. There are also cost-saving deals on various bundles. (And you always save money by pre-ordering with Big Finish.) In the meantime, though, be sure to pick up the continuing releases of The Avengers; The Lost Episodes! Volume 4 is due this July.

As previously reported, Big Finish also have new audio dramas based on The Prisoner in the pipeline. I hope they continue to add other classic British spy and adventure series from the Sixties to their roster! It would be great to hear new adventures of Jason King or Man in a Suitcase... though what I'd like most of all would be to hear audio adaptations of the lost episodes of Adam Adamant Lives! and Callan.

A big thanks to Phil for the tip on this exciting news!

The Prisoner Returns in Original Audio Dramas From Big Finish

Big Finish, the UK company that resurrected the lost first season episodes of The Avengers by producing the original scripts as excellent new audio dramas, has secured the rights to another cult Sixties spy series: Patrick McGoohan's The Prisoner. The company announced earlier this month that Number 6 would return in a series of full-cast audio dramas with original scores. Big Finish co-executive producer Nicholas Briggs (best known as the voice of the Daleks on TV's Doctor Who, but also the writer of some of Big Finish's Doctor Who audio dramas) will write and direct the new series. Voice actors haven't been cast yet. It's a real shame this didn't happen when Patrick McGoohan was still with us, because it's hard to envision anyone else in the role. But still exciting to anticipate new adventures set in the world of the original TV show! Briggs is a fan and promises to treat the material reverently (while not delivering "a slavish retelling of all the original episodes," fortunately), which is more than can be said of the best forgotten AMC miniseries remake a few years ago. It's also exciting to dream about what other ITC classics Big Finish might delve into! The Champions? The Persuaders!? Man in a Suitcase? (Richard Bradford's still around!) Any of those would be great, but what I'd really like to see them do after listening to their fantastic audio recreations of the lost Avengers episodes would be to created audio dramas based on the lost episodes of Adam Adamant Lives! and Callan. In the meantime, though, I'll definitely be checking into the Village next January, when The Prisoner - Volume 1 (four episodes plus a making-of documentary) comes out. It's already available to pre-order ($60.38 for a lavish CD box set with a color booklet, or $35.00 for digital download) from Big Finish's website.
Thanks to Phil for the tip!