Vince Powell and Harry Driver are best remembered for their sitcoms ( 'George & The Dragon', 'Love Thy Neighbour', 'For The Love Of Ada' and so on ), yet they wrote other types of shows too, such as soap opera ( 'Coronation Street' ) and escapist drama ( 'Adam Adamant Lives!' ). Only two of their 'A.A.L.' shows remain in the archive - 'The Village Of Evil' and 'Beauty Is An Ugly Word' - and that's a pity if 'The Survivors' is anything to go by. It opens in a cemetery, where the recently deceased Professor Granger is being laid to rest. As the mourners depart, Stapleton ( Edwin Richfield ), orders the Professor be dug up at once. Mrs.Granger ( Elisabeth Benson ) calls on Adam some time later. She tells him her husband had been working on a new type of fuel at the time of his death, but now Stapleton has produced an identical formula. Adam tries to get official permission to dig up the coffin and see if Granger is indeed dead, but is blocked at every turn by Blundell ( Edward Evans ) of the British Government. Even the P.M. warns Adamant not to get involved in the case. After one of Stapleton's men ( Roy Evans ) tries to kill Adam with a cyanide device installed in a phone, the Edwardian detective decides to dig up the coffin anyway. It is indeed empty...
The late Edwin Richfield graced no less than six 'Avengers' episodes ( including one of my favourites 'Dead Man's Treasure' ) and like a number of old school British actors made first-rate villains in shows of this kind. Erik Chitty, who plays 'Critchley' of the 200 Club ( so named as it has exactly 200 members ), went on to play 'Smithy' in I.T.V.'s 'Please Sir!' the following year. 'Ray' is the late Bryan Mosley, for many years shopkeeper 'Alf Roberts' on 'Coronation Street'.
Being a Powell/Driver script, there's bound to be humour and there is. When Adam first meets Critchley, he addresses him as 'Young Critchley' because the last time he saw him was back in 1901. Hilda Fenemore is 'Mrs.Clasp', a cleaning lady forever grumbling about her knees, and Blundell has a fondness for saying "heads will roll!".
Stapleton has tricked Granger and a bunch of other scientists into thinking they have been placed in suspended animation and that it is now the year 2014 A.D. and that a nuclear war occurred while they slept. While they beaver away in an underground shelter to perfect new inventions ( such as Granger's fuel formula ), Stapleton is marketing them and pocketing the proceeds. When he tries the same tactic on Adam, it backfires, exposing the whole scheme.
The late Edwin Richfield graced no less than six 'Avengers' episodes ( including one of my favourites 'Dead Man's Treasure' ) and like a number of old school British actors made first-rate villains in shows of this kind. Erik Chitty, who plays 'Critchley' of the 200 Club ( so named as it has exactly 200 members ), went on to play 'Smithy' in I.T.V.'s 'Please Sir!' the following year. 'Ray' is the late Bryan Mosley, for many years shopkeeper 'Alf Roberts' on 'Coronation Street'.
Being a Powell/Driver script, there's bound to be humour and there is. When Adam first meets Critchley, he addresses him as 'Young Critchley' because the last time he saw him was back in 1901. Hilda Fenemore is 'Mrs.Clasp', a cleaning lady forever grumbling about her knees, and Blundell has a fondness for saying "heads will roll!".
Stapleton has tricked Granger and a bunch of other scientists into thinking they have been placed in suspended animation and that it is now the year 2014 A.D. and that a nuclear war occurred while they slept. While they beaver away in an underground shelter to perfect new inventions ( such as Granger's fuel formula ), Stapleton is marketing them and pocketing the proceeds. When he tries the same tactic on Adam, it backfires, exposing the whole scheme.
