Courtesy of BBC

The BBC's reply to the success of ITV's spy and action adventures series like The Saint (1962-69) and Danger Man (1960-69) was Adam Llewellyn De Vere Adamant (Gerald Harper), an Edwardian adventurer deep-frozen into suspended animation at the turn of the century by his evil nemesis, The Face, and thawed out 60 years later in the middle of swinging London, only to discover that his old enemy has managed a similar feat.

Adam Adamant Lives! (BBC, 1966-67) played heavily on the mismatch between the hero's old world values and the liberal new world of his reawakening, personified by his sidekick and accomplice Georgina Jones (Juliet Harmer), a nightclub DJ and life-long Adamant fan, having heard about his daring exploits from her grandfather. The trio is complete by Adamant's unflappable butler Simms, played with stoic reserve by Jack May.

The production, overseen by ex-Doctor Who producer Verity Lambert, balances Adamant's swashbuckling encounters with London's underworld with his inability to fully understand a world that appears to have abandoned his treasured principals of duty, deference and honour. However, a reliance on outlandish plots accentuates the comic implications rather than the moral ones - Adamant dispatches villains with a psychotic zeal that goes entirely uncensured.

The series owes a stylistic debt to The Avengers (ITV 1961-69). The episode 'The League of Uncharitable Ladies' (tx, 22/9/66), directed by Ridley Scott, sees Adamant investigating a club in Pall Mall run by three sinister old ladies - called Faith, Hope and Charity - after a mysterious death in St James' Park. However, Harper's flamboyant performance helps create a hero whose antecedents are more age-of-empire adventurer than spoof spy, although the show's theme song was a Goldfinger-style anthem sung with camp gusto by Kathy Kirby.

Harper peeled off Adam Adamant's fake eyebrows after two seasons and went on to find primetime popularity as a cool stately home owner in Hadleigh (ITV, 1969-76) but comic actor Mike Myers resurrected the idea with his spoof spy hero Austin Powers.

Anthony Clark

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