The It's About TV Interview: Alan Hayes, co-author of Escapades—An Exploration of Avengers Curiosities

It's been awhile since we've done an interview here, and I can't think of anyone better to rectify that than my friend Alan Hayes. I first met Alan through his late, lamented website The Avengers Declassified, but now I'm happy to bring him back as the co-author of the new book Escapades—An Exploration of Avengers Curiosities, which, true to its title, delves into various offshoots of the series, including stage, radio and comic book adaptations. It's so new, in fact, it was just published this past Monday.

For some reason which I still can't quite fathom, Alan agreed to be the latest victim—that is, subject—of the "It's About TV Interview." I think—no, I know—you'll enjoy our conversation, which has been lightly edited for clarity.

l  l  l

It's About TV: What was your introduction to The Avengers?

 

Alan Hayes: Somehow, despite being born in the 1960s, I didn't learn about The Avengers until the color Emma Peel episodes screened on the UK TV station Channel 4 in the early 1980s. Perhaps bizarrely though, I had watched The New Avengers—its sequel—on first transmission in 1976 and 1977 and absolutely adored it. I wanted to be Mike Gambit but I was a bit of a nerd and about as convincing a Gambit as Woody Allen would have been! My unquestioning nature didn't lead me to think "Why is this called The NEW Avengers?"—it never occurred to me that there was a previous incarnation of the show. The penny dropped with those Channel 4 showings.

 

I quickly came to enjoy those earlier adventures too and it grew into a favourite series, particularly when I met and eventually married a young woman who was just as enthusiastic about The Avengers and other shows I loved as I was. We both found it an incredibly enjoyable, witty and interesting show, and along with Doctor Who, The Prisoner, The Persuaders!, Kolchak: The Night Stalker and Dark Shadows, it became an integral part of our lives.

 

At some point, though, your appreciation of the show went beyond that of simply being a fan, right? How did that happen?

 

It started when I went on to produce a series of websites about The Avengers, normally about leftfield aspects of the show—the lost first season, the South African radio series (much of which my wife and I recovered and restored, though much of it remains lost), the doomed 1971 Birmingham/London stage show... the list goes on. These were all ultimately brought together into one, monster-big website, The Avengers Declassified, which you can probably find now via Wayback Machine! So, the Avengers websites are all gone, but I thought, "What can I do with all that great content?" The answer was go back to it, undertake further research, improve, expand it, and take it to the next level—and to a publisher!

 

Although I’d set up The Avengers Declassified as an all-encompassing Avengers resource, it didn't really develop along those lines as I found writing about things that others had either ignored or barely touched upon far more rewarding. That's why Richard McGinlay and I investigated the lost first season and ended up writing a book about it rather than going in-depth about, for instance, the color Emma Peel shows which were covered so well elsewhere. I'd already produced a website about the radio series, and Declassified followed its lead, checking out things that Avengers fans probably hadn't even thought of looking for. In a way, that's what Escapades is about—proving that while the series is more than sixty years old now, there are still plenty of fun things to explore, about it and the pop culture it influenced.

 

Escapades isn’t your first book about The Avengers, though. Tell us a little about your other books.

 

Yes, happy to. Avengerworld: The Avengers in Our Lives was a fan anthology which I edited, comprising essays written by forty Avengers fans in which they revealed how the series had touched their lives and led them to do amazing and interesting things. The book was published in aid of a charity supporting a primary school in Southern Tanzania and proceeds paid for a water harvesting system to be installed there. Just thinking of that makes me smile. I later co-edited a similar book about ITC spy series—Playboys, Spies and Private Eyes: Inspired by ITC—and this is available from Quoit Media, with proceeds going to Born Free.

 

I've also co-written two books with Richard McGinlay, one about the first season of The Avengers, Two Against the Underworld—The Collected Unauthorised Guide to The Avengers Series 1, and the other about the series that inspired The Avengers, Police Surgeon. Entitled Dr Brent's Casebook—An Unauthorised Guide to Police Surgeon, this explores in depth the short-lived series that today is almost entirely lost. These and other books are available via www.hiddentiger.culttv.uk

 

But Escapades is a little different from these books, and from other books and websites about The Avengers.  

 

I have to be honest and say that there are many Avengers books and websites out there and I'd happily recommend a great many of them but the last thing I've ever wanted to do is just present my twist on the episode guide or the location tour; I've always been keen to explore the less well walked paths—and in JZ Ferguson I found a great co-author who was interested in doing the same.

 

JZ and I have looked at aspects of the series that simply haven't been covered elsewhere—at least beyond Declassified, where some of the chapters began their lives, but even those have been expanded and improved. There are chapters about the Brian Clemens Avengers revivals, plus others that look at the Diana Rigg 8mm films made in Germany and Spain in the late 1960s, the South African radio series, the Avengers stage play, unmade television scripts for the Emma Peel colour season and The New Avengers, and even a Mexican 'luchadoras' wrestling movie featuring barely disguised Cybernauts! The chapters and others go in depth about one particular 'curiosity' and uncover much about these often unusual parts of The Avengers story.

 

You mentioned your co-author, JZ. As a writer myself, I’m always interested in how collaborations work; how did yours develop?

 

JZ’d written a couple of pieces for The Avengers Declassified that focused on Brian Clemens' attempts to revive the series in the 1980s and initially I asked if she'd mind if I used them in the book I was beginning to put together. JZ was happy for them to be included on the proviso that I would allow her to revisit the text and rewrite where she felt necessary, which of course I was pleased to agree to.

 

As we discussed the book and its possibilities, I quickly realised I'd found the perfect co-author for the project (which I'm pleased to say was exactly the case in practice). The collaboration was such that, with JZ's input, the book developed considerably from what was effectively "the best of a dead website" into something with much more of an identity of its own.

 

In terms of how the work was divided up, we each tackled subjects that particularly interested us, wrote those chapters individually, and then each fed back on the other's work, taking on board the comments and ideas of the other. Hopefully JZ thinks the same, but I have no qualms in saying that my own chapters were greatly improved thanks to her valued input.

 

Were there things you discovered that surprised you, as a fan of the show?

 

It's actually been a fascinating process. Several of the subjects chosen have long intrigued me as a fan of the series and have always been more than a bit mysterious. What inspired Diana Rigg to make those 8mm movies? Why was the stage play considered a flop? What could The Avengers have been like if it had been revived on TV or the silver screen in the decade after The New Avengers? It's been thrilling to have been able to explore many such questions in great depth, particularly regarding productions that other books and websites have touched upon but only in passing, as—quite rightly—they were not their main focus.

 

Was there any type of information out there that served as a kind of Holy Grail for you, that you thought you might not ever discover?

 

Getting an interview with the director of the Minikillers 8mm film would qualify in that respect, though when I spoke to Wolfgang von Chmielewski in 2009, it didn't occur to me just how lucky I was. I think my discussions with him represent the only interview he gave on the subject, and sadly he passed away in 2021. Likewise, two other important contributors have also passed since I spoke to them for the research that led into the book—Donald Monat (the radio Steed) and Simon Oates (Steed in the stage play). It's good to include their voices in this book, and Escapades is dedicated to the memory of these three fabulous gentlemen.

 

What do you think readers will discover in the book that they weren't aware of, or that might surprise them? That "Wow, I didn't know that!" moment?

 

JZ and I hope the answer to that is "Lots and lots of things"—but I think all the chapters abound with new and interesting material. We've certainly learned plenty about The Avengers in writing Escapades and hopefully even the most ardent fans of the series will come away from reading the book with a deeper understanding of the productions we discuss.

 

Is there anything out there that you're continuing to look for, that would really cap off your research?

 

I'd be delighted if further episodes of the Avengers radio series were recovered, but since I was involved in the recovery and restoration of the surviving 19-and-a-bit serials many years ago, nothing further has come to light. But there's always hope...

 

Looking at The Avengers as a whole, where do you think it fits into the television pantheon, especially in England?

 

I don't think the impact of The Avengers can be understated. It was on the scene before the James Bond films truly launched the spy boom in the early 1960s. It blazed the trail for the representation of women as strong characters in television, showed that they could be the equal of or better than their male equivalents in TV drama. It was one of the few British TV series that broke into the American networks and became a global phenomenon.

 

I suppose you've been asked this many times, but do you have a favorite episode? A favorite companion for Steed?

 

I do get asked that a lot and I'm always very boring and say that I don't really. There are many episodes that I adore, but if I nominated a favourite it'd be a different one next week and again the week after! I'm particularly fond of the very early episodes from the videotaped era, particularly the Ian Hendry episodes I know I will likely never see as they are lost, the monochrome Emma Peel season (favourites among that one would be 'A Surfeit of H2O', 'Too Many Christmas Trees' and 'The Hour That Never Was') and The New Avengers (from that 'Target!', 'Cat Amongst the Pigeons' and 'Sleeper'). And I adore the radio series beyond my capability for words—which is an awful admission from a writer!

 

As for a favourite partner for Steed, I'd take two: Purdey and Gambit, both of whom are peerless to my mind, and with Steed make a great team.

 

Alan Hayes

Supposing that you could reboot The Avengers today, a la Doctor Who, would it work? How would the series change? And who would you have playing the leads?

 

I'm not sure The Avengers really could be brought back without seeming to be a copy of so many other things that in many ways it originally inspired. I think the 1998 movie signalled that you couldn't put it on the big screen without it trying to emulate James Bond—which is something it never was—and Doctor Who seems unable to escape the idea that it has to compete with big screen blockbusters albeit on a paltry budget to the point where it compromises what made the series successful in the first place. I'd be sad to see The Avengers twisted to the point that it wasn't really The Avengers any more. I'd prefer the Emma Peels, Tara Kings and The New Avengers to be restored in 4K, released, rebroadcast and find a new generation of fans that way. But I'm probably hugely naive!

 

What’s next for Alan Hayes?

 

My focus these last couple of years has been heavily on the Escapades book, so I'm taking the opportunity for a breather—just pottering around on my Randall and Hopkirk (Declassified) website, which covers a British series that US TV fans might remember better as My Partner the Ghost. Since we completed Escapades, JZ has been writing for a book about children's television with Rodney Marshall (son of The Avengers writer Roger Marshall), and I'm waiting until inspiration for my next writing project presents itself. If Escapades ends up being the last book I write—which is quite possible—then it's one that I'm very proud of and which was a thoroughly enjoyable collaboration with a fabulous writer and friend. I think together we've shown that it's possible to write something fresh and new about a television series that debuted in 1961 and has been much studied. I'll take that!

 

Escapades—An Exploration of Avengers Curiosities was published in the United Kingdom in paperback on Monday March 10 2025. US purchasers are advised to purchase via ebay soon after the publication date as this will ease the journey through Customs. Otherwise, purchases and enquiries can be made at quoitmedia.co.uk. TV