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Adam Adamant Lives!

Title card from the opening titles
Format Comedy
Adventure
Created by Donald Cotton
Richard Harris
Developed by Sydney Newman
Tony Williamson
Directed by in order of number of episodes directed
Moira Armstrong
Philip Dudley
Ridley Scott
Paul Ciappessoni
Henry Safran
and others
Starring Gerald Harper
Juliet Harmer
Jack May
Peter Ducrow
Kenneth Brenda
Opening theme sung by
Kathy Kirby
Country of origin UK
No. Comedy (from the Greek κωμωδίαkomodia has a popular meaning (any discourse generally intended to amuse especially in Television, Film, and An adventure is an activity that comprises Risky dangerous and uncertain experiences Donald Cotton was a Writer for Radio and Television during the black and white era Richard Harris (b London 1934 is a prolific British television writer, most active from the early 1960s to the mid-1990s Sydney Cecil Newman, OC (April 1 1917 &ndash October 30 1997 was a Canadian film and Television producer, best remembered for the pioneering work Tony Williamson (b Manchester 18 December 1932, d 19 June 1991) was a prolific British television writer, Sir Ridley Scott (born November 30 1937 in South Shields, Tyne and Wear) is a British Academy Award Nominated and Golden Globe Emmy Award and BAFTA Award winning Gerald Harper (born 15 February 1929 in London, England) is an actor best known for his work on Television, having played the title Juliet Harmer (born 11 May 1943) is an English actress who was best known in the role of Georgina Jones in the BBC TV series Adam Adamant Jack May ( 23 April 1922 &mdash 19 September 1997) was an English Actor perhaps most widely known for his portrayal Kathy Kirby (born Kathleen O'Rourke, 20 October 1938, Ilford, Essex) was a popular English Singer of the 1960s The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom, the UK or Britain,is a Sovereign state located  of episodes 29
Production
Producer(s) Verity Lambert
Story editor(s) Tony Williamson
Running time 50 min. Verity Ann Lambert, OBE ( 27 November 1935 &ndash 22 November 2007) was an English television and
Broadcast
Original channel BBC
Original run 23 June 1966 – 25 March 1967

Adam Adamant Lives! was a British television series that ran from 1966 to 1967 on the BBC. Events 1180 - First Battle of Uji, starting the Genpei War in Japan 1305 - The Flemish Year 1966 ( MCMLXVI) was a Common year starting on Saturday (link will display full calendar of the 1966 Gregorian calendar. Events 1199 - Richard I is wounded by a crossbow bolt while fighting France which leads to his death on April 6. Year 1967 ( MCMLXVII) was a Common year starting on Sunday (link will display full calendar of the 1967 Gregorian calendar. British television broadcasting started in 1936 and now has a collection of free and subscription services over a variety of distribution media through which there are up to 600 channels A television program (US television programme (UK or television show (U Proposing that an adventurer from the early 20th century had been revived from hibernation in 1966, the show was a comedy adventure that took a satirical look at life in the 1960s through the eyes of an Edwardian. Class and society Socially the Edwardian era was a period during which the British Class system was very rigid

Contents

The Adamant character

The main character, Adam Llewellyn De Vere Adamant, was a swashbuckling Edwardian gentleman adventurer, frozen in a block of ice in 1902 by his arch-nemesis "The Face" and revived in 1966. Swashbuckler or swasher is a term that developed in the 16th century to describe rough noisy and boastful Swordsmen It is based on a fighting style using a The term gentleman (from Latin gentilis, belonging to a race or "gens" and "man" Cognate with the French word gentilhomme An adventurer or adventuress is a term that usually takes one of three meanings One whose travels are unusual and often exotic though not so unique as to qualify On emerging from a hospital and collapsing on the London streets, Adam was rescued by Georgina Jones. London ( ˈlʌndən is the capital and largest urban area in the United Kingdom. Miss Georgina Jones was a fictional modish young woman living in the Soho area of London in the mid 1960s Though in many ways a typical swinging sixties chick, Jones had grown up idolizing Adamant through tales of his turn-of-the-century exploits. Swinging London is a catchall term applied to a variety of dynamic cultural trends in the United Kingdom (centred in London) in the second half of the 1960s Adamant soon became embroiled in the criminal world of the 1960s when Georgina was threatened after becoming witness to a murder. Subsequently, Adam rebuilt his old home on the top of a multi-story car park in central London and purchased a Mini Cooper S. The Mini is a small car that was produced by the British Motor Corporation (BMC and its successors from 1959 until 2000 During an adventure in Blackpool he acquired a manservant in the form of former music hall artiste William E. Blackpool (/ˈblækˌpul is a seaside town in Lancashire, England. Simms. In terms of fashion, the series captured well the gradual shift in 1966-7 from the "mod" styles of "Swinging London" to the more Bohemian, eventually hippie, styles, that characterized the late sixties. See also Bohemianism In modern usage the term " Bohemian " (sometimes shortened to "boho" is applied to people who live unconventional usually artistic The Hippie Subculture was originally a Youth movement that began in the United States during the early 1960s and spread around the world

Series creation

Adam Adamant Lives! has been called by modern observers "what Doctor Who did next"[1], due to the fact that at least three Doctor Who alumni had key positions on the pilot. Doctor Who is a British science fiction television programme produced by the BBC. Most obviously, it re-teamed producer Verity Lambert with Head of Television Drama, Sydney Newman. Verity Ann Lambert, OBE ( 27 November 1935 &ndash 22 November 2007) was an English television and Sydney Cecil Newman, OC (April 1 1917 &ndash October 30 1997 was a Canadian film and Television producer, best remembered for the pioneering work Together, they had been at the core of decision makers who launched Doctor Who. But the series also brought Donald Cotton, who had the same year written two serials for Doctor Who, back into Newman's orbit. Donald Cotton was a Writer for Radio and Television during the black and white era Cotton and partner Richard Harris would write the first script, "A Vintage Year for Scoundrels", and would thus come to be credited as co-creators[2][3]. Richard Harris (b London 1934 is a prolific British television writer, most active from the early 1960s to the mid-1990s Over the years, Newman himself has been cited as creator of the show. Even the BBC has at times propagated this idea, calling him the creator on some of their own pages devoted to the programme[4], but not on others[5]. In truth, he is probably more correctly seen as the executive producer or as having "developed the series for television". Adam Adamant Lives! was a quick replacement for the show he had actually intended; an adaptation of the adventures of literary detective Sexton Blake. Sexton Blake is a fictional detective who has appeared in many British comic strips and novels described by Professor Jeffrey Richards on the BBC in 'The Radio Detectives' in 2003 as "the When the rights to the character dried up suddenly, it fell to writers Donald Cotton and Richard Harris, along with script editor Tony Williamson, to come up with a replacement idea[6]. A script editor is a member of the production team of scripted Television programmes usually dramas and comedies Tony Williamson (b Manchester 18 December 1932, d 19 June 1991) was a prolific British television writer, Near the end of his life, Newman indicated that he had, indeed, been significantly involved in the rewrites, suggesting that his longtime adversary, Mary Whitehouse, had been partial inspiration for the character[7]. Mary Whitehouse CBE ( 13 June 1910 – 23 November 2001) was a British campaigner for values of Morality LIke Doctor Who that had preceded it, Adam Adamant Lives! was thus a show created somewhat by committee and circumstance.

Influences and legacy

The Avengers

With its pairing of an upper-class adventurer with a "trendy" woman of the 1960s, parallels have been drawn with competitor ITV's The Avengers. Independent Television (generally known as ITV) is a public service network of British commercial television broadcasters set up under the Independent The Avengers was a British Television series featuring Secret agents in 1960s Britain. However, because the show was a last-minute replacement for another concept, the degree to which the BBC intended such similarities is unclear. One recent statement has directly addressed the issue:

In Adam Adamant Lives, we were trying to create something original. Even though it may have been aimed at a similar audience to The Avengers — any production decisions we made were not influenced by trying to imitate. [8]

—Verity Lambert, 2004, programme producer

However, a reviewer of the 2006 BBC Four retrospective, The Cult of . The year 2006 in television involved some significant eventsBelow is a list of Television -related events in 2006. BBC Four is a BBC Television channel available to digital television ( Freeview, IPTV, satellite and cable) viewers in the . . Adam Adamant Lives!, detected something more to the issue when Lambert and other principals were interviewed on camera:

The genial and personable Harmer, Clemens, Harper and producer Verity Lambert all owned up to the clunking obviousness of the series' hamfisted and, in retrospect, laughable attempt to trump ABC's masterpiece. Associated British Corporation (otherwise known as ABC Television or ABC Weekend Television) was one of a number of commercial television companies set up in the 1950s Even an otherwise impartial and unironic script compared the two shows thus: "Edwardian gent teamed with beautiful girl . . . and Edwardian gent teamed with beautiful girl". The unspoken tag, of course, was that The Avengers had queered this pitch three years previously. [9]

—Paul Stump, Off the Telly review of The Cult of . . . Adam Adamant Lives!, 2006

This latter view has been echoed by Avengers fans. Indeed, an Avengers-biased biography of Adamant star Gerald Harper, who also frequently guest-starred on the ITV show, flatly calls Adamant "unashamedly modelled on The Avengers". It backs up this claim by demonstrating how individual episodes of Adamant parallel those of The Avengers. Finally, it points out that in the programme's second series, Adamant was scheduled as direct competition for Avengers in some parts of Britain, making contemporary comparison between the shows inevitable for viewers. [10]

More neutral observers have generally reflected this dichotomy of perspective. Anthony Clark at the BFI notes that while the show "owes a stylistic debt to The Avengers", it was "the BBC's reply to the success of ITV's spy and action series like The Saint (1962–69) and Danger Man (1960–69)". The British Film Institute ( BFI) is a charitable organisation established by Royal Charter to encourage the development of the arts of film television This article is about 1960s TV series aka "Secret Agent" also see 1990s TV series Secret Agent Man. He goes on to call the character of Adamant "more age-of-empire adventurer than spoof spy". A Television Haven review admits that while the programme as been "long cited as the BBC's answer to The Avengers", it in fact "owes more to the slick style, tone and format of Lew Grade's phenomenally successful ITC stable of action series rather than the sleek and sophisticated antics of Steed and Mrs. Lew Grade Baron Grade (25 December 1906&ndash13 December 1998 born Lev Winogradsky, was an influential Showbusiness Impresario and Television The Incorporated Television Company (ITC is a British television company largely involved in production and distribution Peel. "[11]

Doctor Who

Harper's portrayal of Adamant has been cited as formative to Jon Pertwee's interpretation of the Doctor. John Devon Roland Pertwee (7 July 1919 – 20 May 1996 better known as Jon Pertwee, was an English Actor. The Third Doctor is the name given to the third incarnation of the Fictional character known as the Doctor; seen on screen in the long-running One writer opines that Pertwee's "suave, dashing portrayal was very much surfing the zietgeist of the time, borrowing from contemporaries such as Adam Adamant Lives!, Doomwatch, Quatermass, and James Bond in the cinema. Zeitgeist ( pronounced) is a German language expression literally translated Zeit time; Geist spirit, meaning "the Doomwatch is a British science fiction television programme produced by the BBC, which ran on BBC One between 1970 and 1972 James Bond 007 is a Fictional character created in 1953 by writer Ian Fleming, who featured him in twelve Novels and two Short story "[12] The BBC's episode guide to Doctor Who is more specific, claiming parallels between the Third Doctor's inaugural scenes in a hospital with those of Adamant in his pilot, "A Vintage Year for Scoundrels"[13].

Austin Powers

Adamant is frequently viewed partial inspiration for Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery[14][15][16]. Austin Powers International Man of Mystery, released in 1997, is the first Film of the Austin Powers series. In particular, allusions are seen between the way in which Powers, like Adamant, is revived from cryogenic sleep and befriended by an attractive woman who had known of his exploits before being frozen. Cryogenics is often used incorrectly to refer to Cryonics, cryopreserving humans or animals The formula is exactly reversed in Powers, however, in that his partner, Vanessa Kensington, is not impressed with his previous record of service, whereas Georgina Jones is a positive fan of Adamant. Vanessa Kensington is a character in Austin Powers International Man of Mystery and briefly Austin Powers The Spy Who Shagged Me.

Adam Ant

Singer Adam Ant appears to have derived his stage name from this programme[17][18]. Adam Ant (born Stuart Leslie Goddard on 3 November 1954 is an English Musician, who gained popularity as the Lead singer of 1980s A stage name, also called a screen name, is a Pseudonym used by Performers and Entertainers such as

Cancellation

As with the purpose of its creation, reasons for Adamant's cancellation vary according to observer. Television critic Paul Stump agrees with the conclusion of The Cult of . . . Adam Adamant! that the programme went off the air because The Avengers was a "'sexier, slicker', better-funded" version of the same concept[19]. However, the programme's largest fan website counters by saying that Sydney Newman, as the BBC's Head of Television Drama, cancelled the show "due to a difference of opinion between himself and his star"[20]. An Avengers fansite agrees with both assessments. It says that the production values didn't match The Avengers, and that, despite good ratings, "Newman wasn't happy with the show overall, and the star in particular"[21].

Lost episodes

There were originally 29 black and white episodes composing two series, plus one unbroadcast pilot (elements of which were used in the opening episode). Black-and-white is a number of Monochrome forms in Visual arts. Many of these were held on video tape but wiped by the BBC in the 1970s (in one case, a 35mm film recording is known to have been destroyed). Videotape is a means of recording images and sound onto Magnetic tape as opposed to movie film. Wiping or junking is an economic move by Radio and Television companies in which old Audiotapes Videotapes and Telerecordings 35 mm film is the basic Film gauge most commonly used for both still Photography and Motion pictures, and remains relatively unchanged since its The result is that only sixteen episodes remained in the archives when the BBC realised the value of such material, including the first and last episodes in broadcast order. These were mainly in the form of the original broadcast 35mm film recordings, with a handful of episodes as 16mm film recordings or reduction prints. 35 mm film is the basic Film gauge most commonly used for both still Photography and Motion pictures, and remains relatively unchanged since its The episode D For Destruction, thought among those lost forever, was however recovered in 2003 – it was found at the BBC in a mislabelled film can. Year 2003 ( MMIII) was a Common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar. It has since been screened every year at the Missing Believed Wiped event. Missing Believed Wiped is an annual event hosted by the British Film Institute in which previously "wiped" Television material from the UK, which

In other media

All 17 surviving episodes were released in a Region 2 DVD box set in the UK by 2entertain Ltd on 24 July 2006, complete with various bonus features, including a documentary in which Harper and Harmer were reunited after almost forty years. DVD video discs may be encoded with a region code restricting the area of the world in which they can be played DVD (also known as " Digital Versatile Disc " or " Digital Video Disc " - see Etymology)is Events 1132 - Battle of Nocera between Ranulf II of Alife and Roger II of Sicily. Year 2006 ( MMVI) was a Common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar.

Episode list

All of series one is held by the BBC, with the exception of episode 14. Series two has not fared so well, with only episodes 2 and 13 in existence.

Series 1

Series 2

References

  1. ^ http://www.bbc.co.uk/cult/classic/adamant/intro.shtml BBC Cult's introduction to the show.
  2. ^ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0505194/fullcredits IMDB's crew sheet for the series' pilot.
  3. ^ http://www.screenonline.org.uk/tv/id/517661/index.html The British Film Institutue's page on Adam Adamant Lives!.
  4. ^ http://www.bbc.co.uk/cult/classic/adamant/trivia.shtml Trivia page at the BBC Cult pages on the programme.
  5. ^ http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/mysciencefictionlife/A17345135 The BBC's Adam Adamant Lives! page at My Science Fiction Life.
  6. ^ http://www.screenonline.org.uk/people/id/522017/index.html BFI article on Sydney Newman.
  7. ^ http://www.bbc.co.uk/cult/classic/adamant/trivia.shtml Ibid.
  8. ^ http://ascendant-lee.mysite.wanadoo-members.co.uk/adamant/lambert.htm A January 2004 written response to questions posed by fansite Adam Adamant Lives!: The Unofficial Homepage.
  9. ^ http://www.offthetelly.co.uk/reviews/2006/cultofadamadamant.htm Stump, Paul. "The Cult of Adam Adamant Lives!" offthetelly. co. uk. 14 November 2006.
  10. ^ http://theavengers.tv/forever/pnote-harper.htm Stampede, Pete. "Gerald Harper". theavengers. tv.
  11. ^ http://www.televisionheaven.co.uk/adam.htm Television Haven's review of Adam Adamant Lives!
  12. ^ http://homepage.ntlworld.com/thebatgranny/pert.htm The Hidden Planet's overview of the Jon Pertwee era on Doctor Who.
  13. ^ http://www.bbc.co.uk/doctorwho/classic/episodeguide/spearheadfromspace/detail.shtml "Spearhead from Space". BBC Doctor Who episode guide.
  14. ^ http://www.clivebanks.co.uk/Adam%20Intro.htm Banks, Clive. "Adam Adamant Lives!".
  15. ^ http://www.clivebanks.co.uk/Adam%20Intro.htm "Austin Powers — the Movie Trilogy". h2g2. 4 February 2003.
  16. ^ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0118655/movieconnections imdb's list of movie connections for Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery.
  17. ^ http://www.bbc.co.uk/cult/classic/adamant/trivia.shtml BBC Cult's Adam Adamant Lives! website.
  18. ^ http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/1759310.stm "Adam Ant: Not just a painted face". BBC News. 14 January 2002.
  19. ^ http://www.offthetelly.co.uk/reviews/2006/cultofadamadamant.htm Stump, Paul. "The Cult of Adam Adamant Lives!". offthetelly. co. uk. 14 November 2006.
  20. ^ http://ascendant-lee.mysite.wanadoo-members.co.uk/adamant/intro.htm Rose, Lee. "Adam Adamant Lives! 2002/2006.
  21. ^ http://theavengers.tv/forever/pnote-harper.htm Stampede, Pete. "Gerald Harper". theavengers. tv.

External links


Adam Adamant Lives!
Juliet Harmer — Gerald Harper — Jack May

Character: Georgina Jones

Creator: Donald Cotton and Richard Harris — Producer: Verity Lambert
Juliet Harmer (born 11 May 1943) is an English actress who was best known in the role of Georgina Jones in the BBC TV series Adam Adamant Gerald Harper (born 15 February 1929 in London, England) is an actor best known for his work on Television, having played the title Jack May ( 23 April 1922 &mdash 19 September 1997) was an English Actor perhaps most widely known for his portrayal Miss Georgina Jones was a fictional modish young woman living in the Soho area of London in the mid 1960s Donald Cotton was a Writer for Radio and Television during the black and white era Richard Harris (b London 1934 is a prolific British television writer, most active from the early 1960s to the mid-1990s Verity Ann Lambert, OBE ( 27 November 1935 &ndash 22 November 2007) was an English television and
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