Thank heaven for English theatre bars. We’ve had two acts of this play, complete suffering both onstage, and off.
This month, we head back to the earliest days of Rogertainment with the very first episode of The Saint (1961), in which Roger Moore teams up with a future Bond girl, the glittering Shirley Eaton, to thwart a serial wife-killer who will one day control every computer in the galaxy. Or something. It’s all a bit confusing really.
– Well, well. The Saint, no less. I know a great deal about you.
– I’m flattered.
– Don’t be. I follow your exploits with extreme distaste. That article about you in The Times last Sunday was the most nauseating thing I’ve seen in print.
– Tried reading your own columns?
This month, our tribute to Honor Blackman continues as we revisit the earliest days of Rogertainment with the seventh episode of The Saint — The Arrow of God. A gossip columnist and blackmailer has been murdered, but who is the perpetrator? Richard, with his history of embezzlement? Peter, who can’t stop cheating at tennis? Nathan, with his dubious parentage? Or James, with his dark, bigamous past?
– Will you do it?
– Of course. Nobody in the world is better-equipped to get rid of Simon Templar than me.
And we’re back at last — a fresh slab of Rogertainment, with a couple of ripper Aussie sheilas along for the ride. When organised crime boss Robert Verrier’s butler is unexpectedly exploded, he becomes convinced that Simon Templar is the killer. Hilarity ensues, of course, and Simon has no choice but to impersonate the assassin to uncover the real culprit.
See the episode
To Kill a Saint is available on YouTube (for the time being), complete with burned-in Hungarian subtitles.
The entire series was released on DVD in two box sets, one for the black and white episodes and another for the colour episodes. The colour episode box set, which includes this episode, is 14 discs of pure Rogertainment, designed to titillate the palette of the true Rodge connoisseur. (Amazon US) (Amazon UK) (Amazon AU)
