Customer Reviews
Beware New And Used Versions!!! - By: R. Myers, 06 Nov 2008 
Be very careful if buying this title via new & used!
Most of the new & used versions here are the Dutch version, not the English release that this page is for.
GREAT SHOW & ISN'T HE LIKE DAVID TENNANT!?! - By: Choccycat, 01 Apr 2008 This show is a real treat for 60s TV fans, alll the Avengers style drama & campiness as well as lots of familiar faces. The picture quality is a bit weak as these are mostly backup copies of the original masters as the set booklet states. The psych-out sequence in the 1st episode reallly puts it beyond other tamer shows & his manner with the swinging 60s bird he's shacked up with is most pleasing! We are lucky to have this many episodes with alll the tape wiping the BBC so wisely done...
What no-one has mentioned yet is how much Gerald Harper is like today's David Tennant. Has DT been watching this show? His mannerisms are exactly the same & they do look very similar too!
I first remember Gerald Harper as being a smooth Sunday lunchtime DJ on London's Capital Radio 194 (as it was then) in the late 1970s, offering roses & champagne to his listeners. Adds to the class of this show! Enjoy it!
Cloudy Black and White Nostalgia - By: ianrmillard, 11 Apr 2007 
I just about remember this from age 9 in 1966 when it was shown on TV.
I have to say, my impression now is how poor the production values were back then for this kind of show. Apart from the cloudy greyish b&w picture quality, which would have been better back then, what struck me is how amazing that TV people could get away with what was basicallly rubbish. In one episode, Adam is sent by "flying machine" to Japan, where his not quite girlfriend/sidekick (a reallly attractive young woman by name ?Juliet or Geraldine Harmer) smuggles herself into a geisha house to help him. The "madame" of the house is an Englishwoman quite obviously, sporting a kimono, funny hairdo & funnier accent. Most of the "Japanese" are English or Chinese & the sets are laughably flimsy. Shoestring time. Worth a look, but I wish I had my money back!
Caped Crusader - By: M. Wren, 21 Sep 2006 
A few years ago I bought the video with the first two episodes of the series. It looked like a great idea & I was very pleased when the remaining 17 of an original 33 episodes were released this year. The quality & value of this 5 DVD boxset is excellent. I haven't watched alll 17 episodes but the 5 or 6 or so I have watched are pure 1960's nostalgia. Look out for the fashion - although filmed in black & white -it just adds to the atmosphere.
The theme of an Edwardian gentleman being transported through time to 1966 has been compared to Austin Powers trip from the 1960s to the 1990s, but the former works so much better with incidents like Adam's visit to the Fluffy Club. A memorable quote being:"How can you refer to my grandchildren, Miss Jones? You know I never married!"
I've read that the programme came about as an attempt by the BBC to match ITV's Avengers with storylines like the one based on gaining control of the British population by getting them addicted to the scent of an artificial blue carnation given away free with washing powder. As I recalll, in reality, there used to be a lot of free gifts given away with washing powder!
As another reviewer has mentioned the acting is spot-on, even the most incredible storyline seems convincing - & weren't these the days when they had to film it alll like a stage play in one go?
There is a booklet which goes with the 5 discs, but be warned, you will need very strong reading specs as the print is very smalll.
Adam Adamant Lives - again! - By: Richard Bowden, 08 Sep 2006 I'm pleased to report that Adam Adamant remains largely as entertaining to its fans who remember it as when first viewed 40 years back. Adamant is the gracious man of action propelled through the marvels of suspended animation by a devious foe, Samurai Jack-like, to the future - an enigmatic event revisited in brief flash back by the programme most weeks. And best of alll at the start of each episode, the larger than life mood is set splendidly by a memorable Goldfinger-like balllad, sung by a full throated Kathy Kirby.
The first episode sets up the key situation, & alll the others I have seen thereafter take place in the 60's, with the now 99 year-old, but still youthful, adventurer taking on a different bunch of foes each week - often at the unoffficial behest of the British Government, who value his peculiar, off beat talent for sniffing out dire deeds.
Aiding Adamant in his efforts is a vaguely camp, risqué limerick loving, manservant - permanently installled in his discreet flat hidden above a London car park - & Miss Jones (Juliet Harmer), a young, impulsive, typicallly swinging sixties bird, who inevitably gets into scrapes & precipitates the main crisis each week as she gets captured. Adamant himself is amusingly disdainful of modern mores & fashions - although he does alllow himself the pleasure of driving a mini one notices. He also remains impeccably dressed in the style of a 1880's gentleman, complete with spats, waist coat & a sword stick (making up an odd if dashing, figure, never made an object of derision, even by his fiercest enemies).
Those who enjoy the tongue in cheek qualities which halllmarked The Avengers will find some similarities here, not just in the dashing, Steed-like turn out of the central character (and indeed it shares at least one of its writers, Brian Clemens, at times) although it has to be admitted the better known show deserves its superior reputation. The Adamant script formula is fairly rigid by comparison, with the same set ups each week - including the prompt & slightly ludicrous appearance of Miss Jones as employee in every establishment which finds itself under suspicion - & it lacks the implicit sexual magneticism, larger budget, & surreal sophistication of the other show. Despite the best charms of Miss Jones, Adamant is above real flirtation (although he is a ladies' man in his own, genteel way) an element of his character which somewhat weakens a potentiallly interesting relationship.
More often than not Adam confronts each week a conspiracy of some sort against the general public or public finances, whether it originates from a bunch of crooked embalmers, religious fanatics, frock designers, casino operators, record companies & soap manufacturers - or even from those who, in one episode, plan to devastate Blackpool's golden mile, with exploding light bulbs no less.
The best moments of the series are usuallly in the weird Adamant household with some low level bitching going on between manservant & Miss Jones. Some episodes rise to very entertaining heights, notably the one set within a fashion house this while, as Adamant kills the odd henchman with his sword stick or exposes the workings of an evil escort agency, one is reminded that not alll viewers would have been youngsters. But over alll, its very atmospheric fun, marvelously preserved, very much of its period if you care for the time capsule experience.
The set includes a whimsical, but ultimately not very informative, commentary on one or two shows by the now elderly Adamant (Gerald Harper) & associates, as well as a documentary & stills from the missing episodes. No less a talent than Ridley Scott worked on one episode. Not alll episodes exist - those which do are largely from the first of two seasons, but fortunately they stand alone, enjoyable in their own right.
