The Brains behind THE AVENGERS
Brian Clemens
Clemens first got involved with The Avengers as a writer for the Hendry/Macnee episodes.In 1961 Clemens wrote the second of a two part introductory story to The Avengers, the episode titled Brought to Book, and also submitted One for the Mortuary to his first season.
He felt that the style grew with the introduction of Honor Blackman and the leather but also due to the tiny budget that the show had at the time. When the episodes turned from being recorded live to actually being filmed Clemens was one of few people to be qualified to do this hence he became associate producer for the first thirteen Rigg episodes but more importantly had creative control. He states that there would be no social problems so the show would be without ethnics, blacks,drug problems etc it was to be a fairy tale world this Avenger world.
It predated Bond but had to compete with the bizarre goings on during the depths of the cold war.In 1964 Clemens was installed as one of three producers on the new filmed series of The Avengers. Clemens was associate producer and essentially acted as script editor and determining the artistic direction of the show.
Impossibly English, Clemens' new Avengers would 'only admit to one class- the upper' and be set in a world of 'Is there still honey for tea?' as Clemens descibed it. Writing many Emma Peel episodes himself, Clemens would also have a substantial input to those which didn't bear his name. Outside of The Avengers, Clemens found time to write for Adam Adamant Lives!, Intrigue and The Baron between 1965 and 1967.
Eventually the increasing humour and way out tendancies of the Peel episodes would bring about Clemens downfall, at least temporarily. The excesses of this era were thought silly by various executives of ABC and around September 1967, with the episode Forget-Me-Knot in production, Clemens and his fellow producer Albert Fennell were fired from the series. John Bryce, producer of one and a half Honor Blackmen seasons and boyfriend of Linda Thorson, was installed as a replacment.
When the John Bryce-helmed Avengers foundered after only three episodes at the end of 1967, ABC begged Clems to return to a show that had been pre-sold to America for delivery in March 1968. Clemens appointed Terry Nation as script editor and made a furthur 26 Tara King episodes before the show was finally cancelled.
Clemens and Fennell then went into films, forming their own production company, Crumel, in 1969. There could not have been a worse time to set up as film producers- the American backers that had bankrolled the 'British' film industry throughout the 60s were now retreating. EMI bought out Associated British and Crumel's 'And soon the darkness' was virtually the first fim to be made under the new management. Two films for the dying Hammer studios followed; Dr Jeckyll and Sister Hyde (1971) and the cult classic Captain Kronos- Vampire Hunter (1973). Clemens also wrote the Golden Voyage of Sinbad (1973) around this time. He soon returned to writing for television with six seasons of the ATV anthology series.
The series also contained a great amount of humour, often in sexual or freudian implications. If you had an innocent mind there was some simple humour but if you held dirty thoughts there were many more delights to be found. It was an aim of the show for it to remain as timeless as possible .
Clemens was a great admirer of Hitchcock and believes that his admiration can be seen in his work. He too used the unexpected setting and his villains were always charming or unexpected: a dentist, a fisherman and so on.
Clemens introduced Mother to bring humour to the show which e felt was lacking since the appointment of Linda Thorson.
The tag scenes were all created by Clemens especially for the American audiences as commercials would follow the credits. These would prevent viewers from switching chanels.
His favorite episodes include The House that Jack Built, A Touch of Brimstone and Pandora.
Other productions credited to Clemens include Blind Terror, The Peking Medallion, Station six-Sahara, The Watcher in the Woods. He also created the TV shows My Wife Next Door and The Professionals and also assissted in creating Bugs for the BBC. He has also written twelve stage plays, two of which have run in the West End one of them was The Avengers stage version.
Created by
Sydney Newman and Leonard White
Exectutive Producers
Albert Fennell, Julian Wintle, Gordon L.T. Scott
Producers
Leonard White, John Bryce, Albert Fennel, Brian Clemens
Directors
Charles Crichton, Bill BAin, Jonathan Alwyn, John Moxey, Cyril Frankel, Don Chaffey, Peter Hammond,Sydney Newell
Writers
Brain Clemens, Malcolm Hulke & Terence Dicks, John Lucarotti, Roger Marshall, Dennis Spooner, Berkley Mather, Peter Ling, John Kruse, Robert Banks Stewert, Terry Nation
Music
Laurie Johnson and John Dankworth
An ABC Production
