Series 1 — Episode 19
Toy Trap

Production details

VTR: Thursday, 6th July 1961 18.00 — 19.00

Read-through: Monday, 10th July 1961 at 10.30 a.m. at The Tower, Brook Green Road, Hammersmith. RIVerside 8641
Rehearsals: From Monday, 10th July 1961 at The Tower, Hammersmith.
Camera Rehearsal: Wednesday, 19th July 1961 10.30am and Thursday 20th July 1961.
Studio details: Teddington Two
Production No. 3416
Tape No. VTR/ABC/1347
Transmission: Saturday, 22nd July 1961, 20.51.00–21.47.35

Schedule

Wednesday, 19th July 1961
Camera Rehearsal	10.30 — 12.30
Lunch Break	12.30 — 13.30
Camera Rehearsal	13.30 — 18.00
Supper Break	18.00 — 19.00
Camera Rehearsal	19.00 — 21.00
Thursday, 20th July 1961
Camera Rehearsal	10.00 — 12.30
Lunch Break	12.30 — 13.30
Camera Rehearsal	13.30 — 15.00
Tea Break, Line-Up, Normal Scan & Make-Up	15.00 — 15.45
Dress Rehearsal	15.45 — 17.00
Notes	17.00 — 17.30
Line-up	17.30 — 18.00
VTR	20.00–21.00

VTR was originally scheduled for 6–7pm.

Total running time: 56.35 = Play portion: 52.25 + 2 Commercial Breaks of 2.05 each (crossed out and replaced with: 1st commercial break 2.05, 2nd commercial break 10 mins)

Regional broadcasts

ITV Broadcaster	Date	Time
ABC Midlands	22/07/1961	8.50pm
ABC North	22/07/1961	8.50pm
Anglia Television	22/07/1961	8.50pm
ATV	22/07/1961	8.50pm
Southern Television	22/07/1961	8.50pm
Tyne Tees Television	22/07/1961	8.50pm
Television Wales & West	22/07/1961	8.50pm
Ulster Television	22/07/1961	8.50pm
Westward Television	22/07/1961	8.50pm
Scottish Television	22/07/1961	8.50pm
Border Television	-	-
Grampian Television	-	-

TV Times listing

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. 3, by Big Finish
• Script - Valerie Brayden’s copy of the camera script and scene breakdown, edited with red pencil, biro and lead pencil, plus an artiste contact list
• Publicity Stills - 138
• Tele-Snaps - 59+4 larger ones, 13 of the small Tele-Snaps are repeated at a larger size (a page of Leonard White’s scrapbook is missing from the copy in the DVD set so 24 Tele-Snaps are unavailable but 4 of them are in the booklet in the larger size)

Transport

Marque/type	Plate
sportscar - maybe an MGA

Continuity and trivia

1. Ingrid Hafner doesn’t appear in this episode, one of six throughout the first series:
   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
2. Spotlight Spring 1969 Actresses & Children (No. 123) confirms that Jill Brooke played Chrissie and, as Flick Rea had curly hair and is the same person as Felicity Peel (she married actor Charles Rea), she’s playing the shop girl with curly hair. It’s not clear if her character is the girl named later in the script as Peggy but I have assumed so in my cast list.
3. Valerie Brayden’s copy of the original camera script indicates that VTR (Videotape recording) was pushed back from 6pm to 8pm; the typed 18.00–19.00 is crossed out in and the time 20.00–21.00 is pencilled in.
4. The camera script is also amended to indicate that the second ad break has changed from the standard 2.05 to an extraordinary 10 minutes. It’s unclear if the second ad break lasted 10 minutes as the press listed it as a start timeslot. Perhaps there was a short party political, public information film, or ITV announcement in the extended break.
5. The camera script note to queue the film insert of the man in the street to start at the 25 second mark, after the fade to black following Patrick Macnee’s credit slide. At that point, they stand-by the title slide which shows a doll of a young woman alongside the name of the episode. That appears at the end of the film insert.
6. The set for May’s flat was changed at the end of Act 2, striking the furniture and adding a curtain, to turn it into Lennie’s flat.
7. The film insert of Lennie’s body being thrown from a passing car sounds very like the one at the start of Square Root of Evil when Tobert’s body is dumped and is probably the same film reused.
8. Leonard White’s scrapbook of Tele-Snaps and paper clipping for series 1 as distributed by StudioCanal in their DVD set is missing a page and omits all the Tele-Snaps after Johnny’s chat with Bunty in his car - except for two (Steed emerging from the wigwam and Freddy & Johnny reacting to being surrounded) which were larger copies, pasted in the scrapbook two pages earlier alongside the TV Times listings.
9. The last screen of the credits has the caption “The Avengers - Next Episode, August 5th - ”Tunnel of Fear"
10. The cast list states that the characters are Johnny and Freddy but their spelling changes in different parts of the script, sometimes being Johnnie and Freddie.
11. For most of the script, the disguised Mrs. McCabe is labelled as M with this later changing to MEYER but the pseudonym is never said by any of the characters.
12. You must wonder why they hired Mitzi Rogers for this episode and squandered her, unless she’s meant to be a red herring for who Johnny’s new poppet might be. Her character is barely in the show, and could have been combined with the Peggy character or the “1 Girl (Name T.B.A.)” listed in the speaking extras.
13. There’s a pencilled notation on the closing credits, when the writer’s credit slide is shown, which appears to record a time of 64 minutes and 25 seconds. Having written the episode up it does seem very long but a 12 minute over-run is surely impossible.
14. I have removed the picture of the man who calls May in the opening teaser as it was a picture created for the video reconstruction and not in the original Tele-Snaps or publicity stills.