Series 1 — Episode 17
Death on the Slipway

Production details

Studio details: Teddington Two
Production No. 3414
Tape No. unknown
Transmission: 24th June 1961, 8.50–9.47 p.m.

Schedule

Camera rehearsals were held on 21st and 22nd June, 1961, in a schedule similar to the other episodes of this time. The VTR recording took place on the evening of 22nd June from 6pm to 7pm.

Regional broadcasts

ITV Broadcaster	Date	Time
ABC Midlands	24/06/1961	8.50pm
ABC North	24/06/1961	8.50pm
Anglia Television	24/06/1961	8.50pm
ATV	24/06/1961	8.50pm
Southern Television	24/06/1961	8.50pm
Tyne Tees Television	24/06/1961	8.50pm
Television Wales & West	24/06/1961	8.50pm
Ulster Television	24/06/1961	8.50pm
Westward Television	24/06/1961	8.50pm
Scottish Television	24/06/1961	8.50pm
Border Television	-	-
Grampian Television	-	-

TV Times listing

The London edition ends with An ABC Weekend Television Network Production and has a photo of Peter Arne with the caption “Peter Arne appears in The Avengers at 8.50”

Episode availability

• Video - no original footage is known to exist; a video reconstruction is available on the Studio Canal series 1&2 DVD set
• Audio - reconstruction in The Lost Episodes vol. 6, by Big Finish
• Script - none
• Publicity Stills - none
• Tele-Snaps - 90, 10 repeated at a larger size

Continuity and trivia

1. The original script for this episode is not available so I have based my breaks in the acts on what I consider to be the cliff-hanger moments. They may have occurred at different points in the synopsis.
2. The two slipway workers peering through the wire behind Liz in one photo are almost certainly Jack and Geordie, played by Robert G. Bahey and Redmond Bailey - the one nearest Liz is Red Bailey as he’s in several other episodes from this series (Brought to Book and Nightmare), so it’s odd-on that the other is Jack.
3. Billy Milton and Sean Sullivan are so similar looking it’s hard to work out who is who in the Tele-Snaps! I wonder if viewers at the time were confused.
4. Ingrid Hafner doesn’t appear in this episode, which is odd as there’s a brief scene at Keel’s surgery. It’s one of six throughout the first series without Carol:
   Hot Snow (obviously, as her character had not yet been introduced), Crescent Moon, Death on the Slipway, Toy Trap, The Far Distant Dead, and Dragonsfield
5. It looks like Gordon Phillott is the actor playing the elderly patient that keeps Ian Hendry from appearing more than fleetingly in this episode. Gordon appears in the next episode, Double Danger, as Bartholemew, so it’s possible the director or other crew member saw him rehearsing the next script or realised following his casting for that that he fit the bill as an elderly patient and used him instead of another extra. Did he end up playing the same character in both? Answers on a postcard...
6. It looks like Steven Scott is making yet another walk-on appearance in series 1 as One-Ten’s undercover agent who is killed at the beginning of the episode but I’m not 100% sure. Answers, on a postcard, to the usual address!
7. Many synopses talk about Fleming having hidden the bomb on board the submarine but the set seen in the Tele-Snaps looks nothing like the interior of a submarine so I set this part of the story in a secured area of the dock - it would certainly make it easier for Steed to hurriedly throw the bomb into the water!
8. Peter Hammond does one of his trademark shots through another object, this time a strange geodesic cage dome over One-Ten’s telephone, shot from above. The designer on this episode, Robert Fuest, worked with Hammond for much of this series and went on to be a director himself. Fuest often did Hammondesque shots through other objects as well so perhaps they influenced each other during their time together in this first series of The Avengers.
9. In a precursor of Mother’s odd office locations in Series 6, Leonard White had noted in a memo regarding One-Ten that “He is usually on a phone - but the phone always seems to be in interesting places.”
10. This episode was broadcast at 8.50pm instead of the previous timeslot of 10.00pm, owing to the high ratings earned in the later timeslot. The Avengers would keep this timeslot until the pause in broadcast to allow Deadline Midnight to finish its run as a weekly serial. When The Avengers returned to screens in December, it returned to the 10pm timeslot.
    Only Please Don’t Feed the Animals on 1st April 1961 (and the ATV, Southern, and Tyne Tees catch-up broadcasts of Brought to Book the same night) had ever had an earlier timeslot, being shown at 8.35pm.