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 – Original Television Scores: The Avengers Label: – ASV-95003,  – ASV-95003Format: , LP Country:Released:Genre:, Style:, ,  Tracklist The AvengersA1Main TitleA2Theme From 'Obsession'A3Cat Amongst The PigeonsA4Theme From 'The Joker'A5Tale Of The Big WhyA6Theme From 'Pandora'A7Main TitleThe ProfessionalsB1Main TitleB2SleuthingB3On The ScentB4In PursuitB5InterludeB6Waiting And AmbushB7On Target Notes Version with center labels in red and black.

Laurence Reginald Ward Johnson,  (born 7 February 1927) is an English composer and bandleader who has written scores for dozens of film and television series and has been one of the most highly regarded arrangers of instrumental pop and swing music since the 1950s with works often serving as stock .

Contents Career[]

Johnson was born in , England, and studied at the  in , and spent four years in the  before moving to the entertainment industry in the 1950s. One of his first major projects was as composer and music director in a musical adaptation of 's Rape Upon Rape, entitled  (1959), which opened in ' . The score, with lyrics by , won an . Johnson's stage work included music for the  , Pieces of Eight (1959), and  (1967), starring .

In 1961, Johnson entered the  with "Sucu Sucu", the  from the UK television series . It was in this area of television scoring that he was to be most prolific. From the 1960s to the 1980s, he composed over fifty themes and scores, including the theme used on  (entitled "Gala Performance"),  (from 1965),  (entitled "Las Vegas"), ,  and . He was one of the founders, with  and , of Mark One Productions, the television production company responsible for The New Avengers and The Professionals.

Johnson was responsible for the theme music to the BBC Radio 1 series Sounds of Jazz, introduced by  and broadcast on Sunday evenings from October 1973 onwards.

Johnson's film scores included ,  (1958), , , , , ,  and  (the 1975  film). Among his other works was the music for the television film, , which involved many of the original Avengers team, including .

Johnson released several recordings on the  label. These included his own compositions The Royal Tour, The Wind in the Willows and Symphony: Synthesis for a large ensemble comprising a jazz orchestra and symphony orchestra. Originally released by , Symphony featured several famous jazz names including , , ,  and , as well as the . Johnson also released an album of music from The Avengers, The New Avengers and The Professionals, an album of his scores for The First Men in the Moon, Dr Strangelove and Captain Kronos, and two albums of the compositions of others: the film music of , and 's suite for .

Since 1997, Johnson has toured with the band he formed, The London Big Band. Their "Theme From 'The Professionals'" peaked on the  at number 36 in May 1997. He has also provided  commentaries on several of the series in which he has been involved. Many of Johnson's works have since become  for a number of animated series, including  and .

Johnson was appointed  (MBE) in the  for services to music.

The New Avengers is a  action television series produced during 1976 and 1977. It is a sequel to the 1960s series  and was developed by original series producers  and .

The series was produced by The Avengers (Film and TV) Enterprises Ltd for the  network, cost £125,000 per episode to produce at , and was seen in 120 countries.

A joint United Kingdom-France-Canada production, the series picks up the adventures of  (again played by ) as he and his team of "Avengers" fight evil plots and world domination. Whereas in the original series Steed had almost always been partnered with a woman, in the new series he had two partners:  (), a top agent, crack marksman and trained , and  (), a former trainee with  (to which she ascribed the high-kicking skills she frequently used in the series) who was an amalgam of many of the best talents from Steed's female partners in The Avengers.

Contents Overview[]

As he did for most of the original  series,  is once again acting without a direct superior—in many ways his character takes on the duties of "" from the  era of that series. Steed is seen to be the mentor to  and , taking on a paternal role towards them (especially in the episode "Hostage"). Gambit is the athletic action hero, while Purdey incorporates the wit and fighting skills of her predecessors. The verbal interplay between Gambit and Purdey, with her humorously keeping his romantic advances at bay, harks back to the Steed/ era of The Avengers.

One reason for the addition of Gambit was the question of whether Macnee, aged 53 when the series began production, could handle the potential stuntwork and action scenes. Macnee was able to increase his role's visibility as the series progressed, losing weight to improve his athleticism and "keep up" with his new partners.

The first series featured several episodes using  similar to those of the classic "" Avengers era. The new trio had to deal with  ("The Eagle's Nest"), biological warfare ("The Midas Touch"), robotics ("The Last of The Cybernauts?"), mind transfer ("Three-Handed Game") and even a giant rat ("Gnaws", a title patterned after the hit movie ). Second series episodes featured science fiction elements, such as the artificially-intelligent super-computer of "Complex", the Russian soldiers revived from suspended animation in "K is for Kill", the submersible Russian community in "Forward Base" and the superhumans of "The Gladiators". Other episodes of that season dealt with more realistic plots.

The Avengers and The New Avengers scriptwriter  said that at the end of its run The Avengers had gone as far as it could in terms of parody. For this reason, producer  intentionally aimed for real stories and straight, -type spy stories in The New Avengers. Spooner explained that "it's no good saying 'I don't like The New Avengers so much, because it wasn't like the old show'-because it never could have been. We did everything – we did the kitchen sink! – and there was no way of going back on it". When reminded of his The New Avengers script "Gnaws", Spooner admitted that "well, yes, towards the end we relaxed a bit!" Some of the storylines used in the series were recycled from earlier scripts penned by Clemens or Spooner from other series. "Medium Rare" was based on the episode "Murder in Mind" of the British series , and "Gnaws" was based on the  story ""

An attempt to get  to appear as Emma Peel in the new series was unsuccessful, although old footage of her on the phone from two 1960s episodes of The Avengers ("The Winged Avenger" and "The Hidden Tiger") were used to allow the character to make a cameo appearance in the episode "K Is For Kill Part One: The Tiger Awakes":  provided the voice of Mrs Peel for these sequences. , who in the early 1960s had played Steed's original partner, David Keel, also guest-starred in one episode, "To Catch A Rat", playing a different role. "Obsession" features two of the stars of the Brian Clemens/ British crime-fighting action series :  and .

Two series totalling 26 episodes were produced, which were aired on  in the United States,  in Canada,  in Britain,  in Ireland,  in Australia,  in France,  in Spain and in  elsewhere.

, who had composed the theme used from 1965 onward for the original Avengers series, returned to compose a new, updated theme for the revival, although it begins with the same fanfare as the original.

In order to complete the planned 26 episodes, finance was sought from other sources. Production company Nielsen Ferns came on board but was understandably keen to promote its home country, so the final four stories, titled The New Avengers in Canada on the caption card preceding each episode, saw the action move to ,  (with scenes for the episode "Forward Base" shot at ). Brian Clemens was by this time heavily committed to working on The Professionals for , and control of the series passed to a largely local crew. The results attracted heavy criticism both from fans and from Clemens himself.

The financial problems continued and plans for a third series were abandoned. Subsequently, however, strong sales to many countries—notably CBS in the United States—saw two attempts to revive the show (in 1979 and 1980), though co-financing arrangements proved impossible to agree upon.

Brian Clemens was invited to write a pilot for 's QM Productions. Entitled Escapade, the pilot episode was broadcast on CBS in 1978, and starred  and  as Joshua and Suzy – Gambit and Purdey equivalents. It was not picked up as a series.

In 1994, Joanna Lumley and Gareth Hunt publicised the launch of the series on domestic videocassette. Sales were stronger than expected, prompting Brian Clemens to consider reuniting the two actors in a "" series. Although both were keen to participate and a script was written, plans stalled at an early stage for undisclosed reasons.

In 1995/6, the series was picked up by the  for a repeat run (Joanna Lumley subsequently claimed that this is the only screening for which she received repeat fees). At the time, French company  held transmission prints for the series, but upon delivery the BBC considered that those for several early episodes were not of "broadcast quality". As a result, the final four episodes were actually the first to be screened, whilst better prints of the others were made up. Nevertheless, notable variations in picture and audio quality across the series remain, and it awaits genuine remastering from the original  /.

The series began a repeat run on  on 13 November 2008. This was the first time the series had been networked since its screening by the BBC in 1995. UK channel  started broadcasting the first series in January 2013.

The series was re-run sequentially on ITV4 in September 2014, starting with "The Eagle's Nest". As with other series such as The Professionals and , episodes were shown in the evening slot and then repeated the morning after.

In July 2018, UK freeview channel  began a re-run of the entire series. Previously they had also shown the original . On 4 January 2021 True Entertainment's replacement channel  began a repeat showing of The New Avengers beginning with series 1, episode 1, "The Eagle's Nest" (whilst the rights to show the original Avengers TV series in 2021 are with ITV).