The Avengers: A Celebration: 50 Years of a Television Classic

One for the fans

On its own merits, this is undoubtedly a handsome-looking tribute to THE AVENGERS, containing a wealth of beautifully reproduced stills, publicity shots and candid rehearsal images from this classic show - and yes, there are some truly stunning photos of Diana Rigg! However, those hoping for a rather more encyclopaedic history of the programme to be contained within these pages will probably be disappointed.The book is divided into sections covering each one of the six AVENGERS series broadcast between 1961 and 1969, but the majority of Marcus Hearn's text is confined to introductory passages about the show's evolving format from one season to the next, which give way to a plethora of captioned images relating to key episodes from each series, and what is said is nothing that fans of the show wouldn't know already.Certainly, THE AVENGERS: A CELEBRATION goes some way to illustrate the style and the quirkiness which made the programme such a hit both at the time and today, particularly with regard to the colour Diana Rigg series and the psychedelic final season with Linda Thorson. However, for more in-depth illuminations about THE AVENGERS' story, you'd be better off reading Patrick Macnee's THE AVENGERS THE INSIDE STORY memoir or - if you can find it - a copy of Dave Rogers' exhaustive and highly detailed THE COMPLETE AVENGERS, both of which make for a more absorbing and educational read.

Absolutely beautiful coffee book. Some excellent stills, beautifully reproduced l, with text from an expert genre author who knows his bowler hats from his kinky boots Not really much more I can add, really .

A beautiful visual history of the best TV series ever.

A Fabulous book with a wealth of stills including many that have never been released before from one of Britain's finest television series,the book is split into sections for each season including many stills from Season 1 which is virtually missing from the tv station's archive this alone makes it an essential buy with many glorious black & white and colour shots,Highly Recommended +++++.

This is a great accompaniment to BOWLER HATS & KINKY BOOTS (by Michael Richardson) with amazing reproduced photographs and loving researched detail. Marcus Hearn certainly knows his popular television and film as his Hammer books testify and this is another lovingly produced homage to a classic TV series, well written and perfectly researched.

The photographs in this book provide an excellent accompaniment to the Avengers programmes.

I just love Emma Peel and John Steed as the Avengers. Wonderful book with beautiful pictures.