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When Big Finish gained the rights to recreate the Lost Episodes of The Avengers’ first season, they needed someone to step into Patrick Macnee’s shoes as John Steed. On the very last day of recording, Julian Wadham reflects with Paul Simpson on his time as the bowler-hatted agent…

How did you get involved with The Avengers?

I’d done an episode of Doctor Who for Big Finish and then one day out of the blue, they said, “We might have rather a good job for you in the autumn”, and I said, “Gosh, bring it on, great!” It was all a little bit hush hush at that point, and they didn’t give me any indication what the job might be and then they announced they had been given permission to do these early Avengers.

I was completely thrilled because I’m old enough to have watched the originals as a child, and I had a bowler-hat wearing city-going father who I adored. The combination of the two was just irresistible.

You obviously knew who Steed was – but had you any idea of this early version of him in the Steed and Keel stories? He’s not quite the same man in these stories.

Yes, that’s quite true, and actually I have no memory of Keel, so I think I must have joined at the Diana Rigg stage, because I’m not sure I have any memory of Honor Blackman either, and certainly not Keel. As a child I must have joined it at a point when it was already quite well established.

And it was on at a more child-friendly time at that point, on Sunday evenings, in a similar slot to The Saint, where people sat down as a family to watch.

I remember The Saint as well. I enjoy those Keel scripts very much; I wish I had seen Keel. I don’t know why Keel wasn’t kept on.

It was Ian Hendry’s choice, as I understand it. He went off and did something else when there was the hiatus between seasons.

When you first read these stories, how did you approach the character of Steed? Did you go back and watch the way Pat had played it, or did you decide to go from memory and what you were being given in the scripts?

I think the latter. Chiefly from memory – I can remember him always being stylish and dapper, the dandy, and I remember him being humorous. My father was also very humorous, so I knew I wanted to project my affection of the role onto him.

I think if you take over a part from someone who’s had a big success in it, it’s a bit daunting, and I think you have to, as quickly as possible, make it your own. So actually I didn’t do any research: as you quite rightly say, I used the combination of my memories of how attractive he was in the part, and my affection for my father. I just wanted to marry the two.

Steed at this point is quite manipulative, particularly in his dealings with Keel – maybe not in the first story where he’s there to help him Avenge his fiancee’s death but thereafter he uses him. What do you think of him?

I think from a modern perspective it’s hard to particularly like or approve of him at all, in much the same way that perhaps people who play Bond struggle with the concept of Bond. I think it’s very easy to see him as a forerunner of Bond, certainly as he evolved in the movies, if not the books.

I think you just have to accept that Steed’s totally politically incorrect from our perspective; most of that is as it shouldn’t be, but I think political correctness itself is a strange concept. As a society we’ve learned to see the value of it and why we’ve had to train ourselves to rethink our values, to try to treat other people properly etc. That’s all been a step forward and a good thing, but there’s always the side of political correctness that most of us recognise that’s just a bit boring when it goes over the top, goes too far. There is something quite refreshing about playing Steed. He isn’t as people are today and he does do and say outrageous things, which from our perspective now, I think are rather hilarious.

In one of the stories in this last box set, his immediate reaction to a female doctor is…

…outrageous! Totally outrageous. You couldn’t write it today and a very good thing too, but it’s interesting how recently in our past that was totally acceptable. The scene we recorded this morning, if that was a contemporary script, people would walk out; they’d say, “I’m sorry I won’t play this.” And if any woman was spoken to in the way that Steed speaks to a lot of “the ladies” in his life, there’d be slapped faces, wouldn’t there, and protests. But I think the audience understands it in its context.

And it never goes into Carry On territory – it’s nudge nudge wink wink, and there’s always the impression that, in some of these series 1 audios, if he actually got taken up on some of his innuendo…

…he’d be terrified!

Like the scene in GoldenEye where Samantha Bond’s Moneypenny makes a comment to Brosnan’s Bond about that.

Exactly. That’s a very interesting observation – I’ve had the same thought: he may be all mouth and no trousers.

Although in the later box sets, we have had him with the lady, early on…

…the gentleman doth protest too much methinks. Interesting idea.

There are two and a half extant episodes and scripts for about half of what you’ve done; the other half has been made out of pretty whole cloth, which has allowed the scriptwriters to build the relationship between Steed and Keel. Now they’re coming to the end, how do you think Steed feels about Keel?

Very fond. I think they’ve become a very good, very close relationship. Keel is commonsensical and feet very much in the clay, and Steed is a little boy, isn’t he? He’s not a grownup at all really.

He’s playing at spies…

Yes, and in consequence there’s a real attachment between the two, and they do work together well as a team, I think.

There are times when Keel, er, keelhauls him…

Very well put – that’s absolutely right.

Are there times that you’ve read scripts and felt it doesn’t feel right for the way you’ve been playing Steed?

No. (laughs) But I have to say that there has been an evolution of the scripts because our experience of recording them has been divided into the early television ones, and then, latterly we have been doing the “cartoons”, and they are radically different and hugely enjoyable. I’ve really enjoyed doing the “cartoons”.

Were you surprised when David asked if you wanted to play an almost different version of Steed for the Comic Strip Adaptations?

Of course I didn’t realise until he presented me with the scripts that it was an almost different version. We discovered that together. Funnily enough, it was about the right time, because we wanted to be going somewhere rather than treading water.

I must say I think they were very inventive, those comic strips, and I have a feeling I have a vague memory of them as a boy, or some of them. I rather like their fantastical element and their humour – they were great fun to record.

The scripters on the first box set were some who are well known for their humorous contributions. Obviously you have a very different partner on that, with Olivia Poulet as Emma; how did that dynamic work?

That was very nice. We had a very gentle introduction to each other and we make each other laugh. It evolved in a very pleasant way. Again, I think it was kind of time – there is a limit to how many episodes of the same kind of thing that I think you want to go on repeating. The fact that it changes shape and style has been one of the great pleasures of it.

Did it feel odd going back from that more two-dimensional version of Steed…

He definitely is.

…forgetting the comic strip element, even series 5, series 6 episodes, he’s a comic strip character…

He is. He’s not three-dimensional.

In the early adventures, there’s more sides to him, which may be something you’ve brought out of the scripts, and I feel he’s a stronger character.

That’s interesting – I still struggle with the two-dimensionality of him. Unless you have a completely contemporary crack at the scripts, and were able to be creative and start over with some original scripts, it would be hard to make him fully three-dimensional. There is something quintessentially black and white about the episodes.

In the Steed and Emma stories they don’t seem to have a boss – who tells them they’re needed? – whereas with Keel, he’s definitely got a boss. Does he feel like a different person?

I don’t think he does feel particularly different coming back to, because I’m not sure I have been particularly successful in taking him out of a two-dimensional figure into a three-dimensional one. But I had observed what you commented on – the fact that they seem to be a law unto themselves when they start out with the “Mrs Peel We’re Needed” – and I suppose I noted it as one of the stylistic changes of gear that we had during the recording of the various different series. I found it very pleasurable, the different phases of it. But I don’t think any of it has made him feel more three-dimensional…

If you had a chance, would you like to carry on playing Steed?

Very much. I’ve really enjoyed playing him, so long as they remain essentially humorous. We’ve recorded one that was terribly dry and just about narrative, and for the first and only time in recording these box sets, I thought it was a bit substandard and a bit dull to do. To have had only one duff script in 25 is not a bad track record.

When you’re offered a part, or a script, what do you look for?

Playability, for lack of a better word. Bad scripts are almost unplayable, and almost unlearnable, which is why I think good actors, if they’re sensible, hold out for good scripts. It makes them look better actors. But we can all look rubbishy in rubbishy scripts. I think it’s a mistake to take on something that you don’t have some level of belief in.

Are there particular types of character or situations a character is in that you would still like to have a go at?

Very much so – I wouldn’t be the only actor who likes to be surprised.

The challenges of earning a living in this business are such that there’s a certain endless pressure to play the same role again and again and again. I suspect that’s the same whether you’re Judi Dench or anyone else to a degree. But of course the great joy is when you’re put in a situation where you can surprise the audience a bit and they think, “That’s funny, I wouldn’t have thought of him doing that.” So I suppose those are the roles that really thrill me but they don’t come along so often.

Is there a particular medium you prefer working in?

There used to be – I’ve done a lot of theatre in my life, probably more theatre than anything else, although if I look at my CV, it seems to be reasonably balanced in terms of theatre, telly and film. But as I get older, I am currently aware that I have a bit less energy than I used to, and unless the theatre part is a substantially interesting part, I would prefer for the moment to do more telly and film.

But I’ve always loved doing radio and audio work and have done that consistently throughout my 25 or 30 years of acting.

What attracts you to that?

My experience of it is that it’s almost the hardest of the mediums that I’ve worked in as an actor and I enjoy the challenge of trying to get better at it.

What challenges you about it?

I think because you have to create the wallpaper. You have to somehow create the room, the whole ambience, not just say the lines, or tell the narrative. You somehow – and I don’t know how the people who are good at it do it – have to create the whole soundscape and there are some people who are just terribly good at it and I’d love to know how they do it. It must be a natural thing.

I think that’s something that comes across from you in these…

That’s very kind. I certainly am aware of hitting that period. Something that’s helped me with this brings me back to my lovely father. He was of the generation who fought in the Second World War, but like all generations was probably a man of the previous generation. I grew up with a father who wasn’t an Edwardian but to some extent his parents were Edwardians…

So he was brought up with those values.

Yes. And my memory of my father is what has informed my performance as Steed. I think Steed has aspects of Edwardian England.

You could drop him into 1911….

…and they would recognise him.

Are there any particular roles that you’re currently really wanting to play?

You know whenever people ask me that, I always feel that I should know the answer. It terrifies me that I don’t.

But surely that means that you’re open to what’s coming? Sometimes what you want is the exact opposite of what you should be doing…

Again I think that’s probably spot on. I just love my acting life, I love being an actor, which is particularly satisfactory, because as a young man starting out, it’s really terrifying, the ups and downs.

What got you into it?

I was at [public school] Ampleforth, and Rupert Everett and I were the leading ladies there. Now like all these schools, it has girls, but in those days boys played girls. Rupert played all the sexy girls and I played all the Mayfair hostesses. And nothing’s changed. John Steed is exactly my territory.

I can imagine you and Everett in The Importance of Being Earnest…

Yes, and [Friedrich] Schiller’s Mary Stuart – he played Mary Stuart, and I played Queen Elizabeth.

I worked with Cate Blanchett on David Hare’s Plenty which we did in the West End – I was her husband, so I started the play stark naked on stage. Absolute nightmare – three months of having to go on stage naked in front of Cate Blanchett every night!

When we met at the Almeida for rehearsals on the first day, I walked up to Cate and said “You and I have something in common.” She’s very tall and masculine, and looked down on me from a great height and said, “What’s that?” I said, “We’ve both played Queen Elizabeth.” She paused, only for about a fraction of a second, and said, “I’m sure you were definitive.”

So you carried on after school?

Rupert and I were both completely obsessed with acting and the great thing about school is I’ve never been so fully employed before or since. Not only could you do a school play every term, but a house play every term. I was regularly doing for five years, three times a year, two plays a term. I was doing six plays a year, which is more than most actors can squeeze in, for five years. Great training.

Almost like rep…

Absolutely. Funnily enough when I went into rep, it was totally familiar and recognisable to me: it was like going back to school.

Does directing or writing interest you?

No – my mother wrote six books, so part of me at one point kind of assumed that I would be able to do it, but it’s a different discipline. So no; directing, no; and a lot of other things no.

In a curious kind of way it doesn’t feel remotely right or creative: you would have thought to be an actor you might have to be a creative sort of person. But I don’t feel like I’m a creative or artistic sort of person. I feel as if every other door to me was closed and the only thing I could do was act.

In some way, there’s comfort in that because it helped me put up with the ups and down. Some people fell by the wayside because they couldn’t get work; others fell by the wayside because they had second strings. I didn’t have a second string – and that’s what’s kept me here. And I’m very glad it has, because I love it now.

Volume 7 of The Avengers: The Lost Episodes is now available from Big Finish.

Thanks to David Richardson for his help in arranging this interview & all the cast and production team for their help during the recording.