Steed and Tara have to protect President Freddie Diaff of Gunthstat from a very unusual form of assassination attempt…

Nigel Fairs expands the original TV Comic story – author unknown, but drawn by Doctor Who artist John Canning – that ran from March 29 to May 3, 1969, making it effectively the first original outing for the Avengers after the series ended mid-April. Unlike some of the adaptations, which use the comic book tale as a springboard for something rather more outré, Fairs sticks moderately close to the beats of the original, although adding the presence of Mother and Rhonda (Mother’s taciturn wheelchair-pushing assistant, who clearly shares her boss’s Jacuzzi!) gives it more dimension, and reworking the locations works well.

However, if Allo Allo type accents are not your thing, then this is a story to avoid – Freddie, and others connected to him, have very exaggerated mittel-European accents that grate after a bit. Couple that with a scene where Mother is trying to recall a particular piece of music so you have Christopher Benjamin quite high in the mix singing near enough the same damn notes for what feels like hours, and it’s one of the few Avengers tales that I can be absolutely certain I won’t be revisiting.

Verdict: Nice work from Julian Wadham and Emily Woodward as Steed and Tara unfortunately gets buried. 6/10

Paul Simpson

Click here to order from Big Finish