Adam Adamant Lives!

I had planned to find something interesting to blog about last night but that was before I discovered BBC4's 'Science Fiction Britannia' season had started and was showing 'Adam Adamant Lives!' so that plan went right out the window. Instead I'm watching the fantasticly titled pilot episode: A Vintage Year for Scoundrels.

Adam Adamant is where Austin Powers took its core idea from.
Adam Llewellyn De Vere Adamant is an Edwardian adventurer in the year 1902. He saves the king from an assassin only to be betrayed by the woman he loves to his arch enemy, known only as 'The Face (no, not the guy from The A- Team),' who hilariously wears a gimp mask, thus proudly wearing his villian credentials on his sleeve (or in this case his head).
The Face injects Adamant with a serum that causes longevity (don't you just hate it when your enemies do that to you?) and then encases him in a block of ice (because killing him just wouldn't be sporting. Oh no. But making your nemesis live longer? That's the mark of a gentleman. Albeit a gentleman in a leather gimp mask).
Fast forward to 1966 where Adam's icy tomb is uncovered and he's carted off to hospital to be thawed out.
Adam is delirious when he awakes and convinced that he is still in the hands of his enemies so he makes good his escape. Clothed in his Edwardian garb (which you hope they washed for him at the hospital because if not, he's been wearing it for over 60 years and must by now be a little ripe) he takes to the streets where, with typical Victorian aplomb, he wonders in to a red light district where he is accosted by prostitutes.
Here he is found by Georgina Jones who recognises the once famous adventurer and takes him back to her flat. Adamant goes with her because in his delirious state he mistakes Miss Jones for a boy (no comment) due to her (to his eye) mannish clothes.
Awakening the next morning Adam is horrified to learn he has spent the night unchaperoned in a ladies bedroom (i'm sure we've all been there).
The rest of the episode sees Georgina witness a murder with Adam protecting her from the killers when they come after the one witness to the crime.
In spite of his old fashioned attitudes Adamant is quite happy to bump off any villians that cross his path with his trusty sword stick. Exactly how these bodies are explained away to the police is never really gone in to in any detail but hey, it was the sixties. He went on to acquire a servant and a Mini Cooper which while it was no Batmobile you can forgive him- as I have just said- it was the sixties.

You have probably worked out by now that a lot of the humour comes from the clash of his upright Victorian sensibilities against the background of the swinging sixties more outgoing attitudes. The show was surprisingly violent but then this was at a time when tv executives were turning Mary Whitehouse baiting in to a sport. For those who don't know Mary Whitehouse campaigned heavily for better morality on television which partly inspired Adamants creator Sydney Newman when he came up with the idea for the 1900/1960 culture clash.

If you get the chance to see it, do so (try not to let the awful dodgy Bond sounding theme tune put you off). It might be a little cheesey now but it's good fun (although to be frank I want to be Adam Adamant so I am a little biased. Rather unfairly some people who have known me a while would say I am already there if they saw this clip directed by Ridley Scott of all people).
Personally I think it's about time they remade this. It would be perfect to do today and has so much potential to be a fantastic show. It is a shame that David Tennant is currently playing Doctor Who (thought up by the same creative team) because he would be perfect for the role.