• title card: DIAMOND CUT DIAMOND superimposed on an airliner coming in to land (recreated by Richard McGinlay)
  • Publicity still: Steed makes a phone call while Fiona sobbs against his shoulder

Series 1 — Episode 7
Diamond Cut Diamond

by Max Marquis

Production No 3371, VTR/ABC/1141
Production completed: February 18 1961. First transmission: February 18 1961.

Production details

Studio details: Teddington Two
Production No. 3371
Tape No. VTR/ABC/1141 (recorded off TX.)
Transmission: 18th February 1961, 10.00–11.00 p.m.

Schedule

Camera rehearsal would have taken place on 17th February and 18th February, 1961 in a schedule similar to the other episodes of this time.

Regional broadcasts

ITV BroadcasterDateTime
ABC Midlands18/02/196110.00pm
ABC North18/02/196110.00pm
Anglia Television18/02/196110.00pm
ATV--
Southern Television--
Tyne Tees Television--
Television Wales & West--
Ulster Television--
Westward Television--
Scottish Television--
Border Television--
Grampian Television--

TV Times listing

TV Times listing for February 18 1961, 10pm (Northern edition)

10.0 THE AVENGERS
starring
IAN HENDRY
in
DIAMOND CUT DIAMOND
Teleplay by Max Marquis
Also starring
PATRICK MACNEE

Cast in order of appearance:

John Steed Patrick Macnee
“One Ten” Douglas Muir
Fiona Charles Sandra Dorne
Dr. Collard Hamlyn Benson
Carol Wilson Ingrid Hafner
David Keel Ian Hendry
Stella Creighton Joy Webster

Theme composed and played by
Johnny Dankworth
Designed by Robert Fuest
Producer LEONARD WHITE
Directed by Peter Hammond

Two beautiful women make it difficult for
John Steed to keep his mind on his work
when he joins an airline to find a murderer

Some editions of the TV Times showed the photograph of Fiona Dorne and Patrick Macnee at the top of the page with the listing.

Episode availability

  • Video - none
  • Audio - reconstruction in The Lost Episodes vol. 5, by Big Finish
  • Script - none
  • Publicity Stills - 1
  • Tele-Snaps - none

Continuity and trivia

  1. This episode is almost entirely lost - no scripts and no film; all we have is a single publicity still which was printed in TV Times. The scant information we have is taken from newspaper articles and the TV Times listings of the day (including that photograph), and from Dave Rogers’ researches in the 1980s and 1990s, which seem to have been based on original paperwork from the show which is now missing. Dave Rogers’ first book simply reproduced the TV Times summary but The Complete Avengers and The Ultimate Avengers have a longer synopsis.
  2. This episode seems to have much of the same plot points as the Danger Man episode, Sabotage with a bit of The Contessa and The Professionals mixed in. Interestingly, Australian actor Alex Scott appeared in two of those episodes.
  3. Originally not in the first run of eight episodes, this story was slotted into the seventh position due to delays with Patrick Brawn’s adaptation of Fred Edge’s Canadian TV script for The Radioactive Man. Ashes of Roses was also move down ,ending up in ninth spot.
  4. A memo dated March 30 1962 proposed a replay season for the nine episodes not broadcast by ATV and Anglia and also the first two episodes, which had been seen on ATV but not Anglia. This proves that all live episodes had been recorded any may yet be out there somewhere.
    This episode was proposed to be run fifth so was not a favourite of the producers but was considered better than some others as it had been in the third category of viewer ratings when first broadcast but was proposed to run before some of the more popular episodes (unless they were trying to regulate ratings by sandwiching bad ones between better ones).
  5. This was the first episode broadcast on Anglia Television, skipping Hot Snow and Brought To Book which several other regions showed when they started broadcasting The Avengers a month later, on 18th March 1961.
  6. With Anglia joining ABC in showing The Avengers, Leonard White ordered that from this episode onward the closing slide should read “An ABC Production” instead of “An ABC Network Production”.

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