A Touch of Brimstone

"A Touch of Brimstone" is the twenty-first episode of the fourth series of the 1960s cult British spy-fi television series The Avengers, starring Patrick Macnee and Diana Rigg. It originally aired on ABC on 18 February 1966. The episode was directed by James Hill (known for A Study in Terror and Born Free) and written by Brian Clemens.

"A Touch of Brimstone"
The Avengers episode
Screen title
Episode no.Season 4
Episode 21
Written byBrian Clemens
Produced byBrian Clemens and Julian Wintle
Featured musicLaurie Johnson
Production code4-21
Original air date18 February 1966 (1966-02-18)
Guest appearances
Peter Wyngarde
Colin Jeavons
Carol Cleveland
Robert Cawdron

The episode is widely known for Diana Rigg's risqué "Queen of Sin" costume (which she designed herself), and was the most watched episode of The Avengers on its original showing. There is a publicity still of the "Queen of Sin" holding James Hill, the episode's director, on a leash.

Plot

Steed and Peel are investigating Cartney, who is suspected of involvement in pranks on high profile political and business figures. Through subterfuge, Peel affects a connection with Cartney, who is attracted to her. She overhears Darcy arriving and informs Cartney that he has arranged another prank. Steed infiltrates Darcy's residence and, after knocking out Cartney's housekeeper, Horace, finds a pair of rubber scissors. Real scissors are used on an electrified ribbon by an official opening the "International Friendship Club", killing him.

Darcy did not expect to be involved in murder and is distraught. Steed gets him drunk and, under the pretence of knowing him from a party, learns of the Hellfire Club, which is responsible for the pranks. Peel visits Cartney and discovers information that leads to the Club, an organization that engages in orgiastic rituals and which revels in "ultimate sins", replicating the historic Hellfire Club as closely as possible.

During a Club party, Darcy arrives and demands a meeting with the superiors on the "Circle of Justice", asking why they plotted a murder and implicated him. The centre of the circle opens as a trapdoor and Darcy is killed. On Peel's recommendation, Steed stands to join the Hellfire Club and is given two membership tests, firstly drinking a large amount of alcohol (which he does easily) and then removing a pea guarded by an axe-wielding member. Rather than trying to grab the pea, like another member who lost two fingers, Steed blows the pea away as the axe descends. Steed is welcomed by the group and overhears that the Club is planning a coup which will have the "whole country up in arms". The following day, Steed and Peel attend the next event, and spot a cache of explosives. Steed questions a drunk girl and deduces that the Club intend to blow up Culverston House, where three foreign leaders are staying. Peel re-enters in a "Queen of Sin" outfit, holding a snake. Cartney tells the group "She’s yours to do with as you will". Members carry Peel, throwing rose petals on her. As the revellers watch a fight, Horace recognizes Steed and exposes him as a spy. Steed wins the ensuing sword duel against the club expert. Peel defeats two members laying out explosives underground, before being attacked with a whip by Cartney, who drops to his death through the trapdoor when his whip catches the switch.

Cast

The cast for the episode were:[1]: 114 [2]: 164 

Production

Production for the episode was completed in December 1965. The episode was directed by James Hill.[2]: 163  The episode was first broadcast on 18 February 1966. It had the subtitle "Steed joins the Hellfire Club - Emma becomes Queen of Sin".[2]: 163  When boradcast in France, the episode was titled "Le Club de L'Enfer."[2]: 166 

Reception and influence

The series received the highest UK viewing figures for any episode of The Avengers, attracting an estimated 8.4 million viewers, which made it the fifth most-viewed programme of that week.[2]: 165  Michael Billington wrote in The Stage that the episode had "just the right mixture of extravagance and menace".[3] He praised the lead actors, calling Macnee's playing of Steed "unimprovable", describing Wyngarde's part an "immaculate performance", and saying that although Rigg's portrayal of Emma Peel has received a mixed reception, he felt that she had "made a definable character out of Emma Peel, sometimes without much help from the scriptwriters".[3]

The episode is known for the scene in which Peel dons a revealing, kinky[4] "Queen of Sin" costume (which Diana Rigg designed herself), complete with a dog collar with three-inch spikes, whalebone corset, and high leather boots. Rigg also carried a large snake.[5][6][7] It is the Hellfire club members who dress her this way; she appears for less than ten minutes of show time in this manner, always demure, though ending with Cartney attacking her with a whip. The members of the Hellfire Club have been described as engaging in "uninhibited debauchery".[8] As a result of this and other elements, the episode was not broadcast when The Avengers aired on American network television; it did air on British television, but with the whipping scene edited down to one crack of the whip in some ITV regions.[2]: 165  Media historian James Chapman said of the episode, "With its visual references to sado-masochistic pornography, 'A Touch of Brimstone' unsurprisingly ran into censorship difficulties with the ITV network; it was not screened in America at all."[9] Tom Lisanti and Lous Paul, authors of Film Fatales: Women in Espionage Films and Television, 1962-1973 cited the episode as one of Diana Rigg's finest,[10] and it was rated as one of the five best episodes of the fourth series by Paul Cornell, Martin Day and Keith Topping in The Avengers Dossier.[2]: 131 

This episode was Chris Claremont's inspiration for the Hellfire Club in Marvel Comics' "X-Men", and in particular the story arc in Uncanny X-Men #132-134. Hellfire Club member Jason Wyngarde's name and likeness is based on Peter Wyngarde (who was later known for the role of Jason King).[11] It was reported in 1993 that fans were still sending Rigg postcards of her dressed as the Queen of Sin to be autographed.[12]

This episode inspired the band The Electric Hellfire Club's namesake; in addition, the episode is heavily sampled and used as audio cues/samples in several of EHC's songs, such as: Evil Genius (Queen of Sin) and HellFire!

References
  1. Rogers, Dave (1989). The Complete Avengers. Boxtree. ISBN 1852832444.
  2. Cornell, Paul; Day, Martin; Topping, Keith (1998). The Avengers Dossier. Virgin Books. ISBN 0863697542.
  3. Billington, Michael (24 February 1966). "Combined right mixture of extravagance and menace". The Stage. p. 12.
  4. Carruthers, Jo; Tate, Andrew (2010). Spiritual Identities: Literature and the Post-Secular Imagination. Peter Lang. p. 204. ISBN 978-3-03911-925-7.
  5. White, Matt (5 December 1965). "What a shock! It's Emma the Avenger". Sunday Mirror. p. 5.
  6. Knight, Gladys L. (2010). Female Action Heroes: A Guide to Women in Comics, Video Games, Film, and Television. ABC-CLIO. p. 119. ISBN 978-0-313-37612-2.
  7. White, Ellen Emerson (2007). Long May She Reign. Macmillan. p. 636. ISBN 978-0-312-36767-1.
  8. Pratt, Douglas (2004). Doug Pratt's DVD: Movies, Television, Music, Art, Adult, and More!. UNET 2 Corporation. p. 97. ISBN 978-1-932916-00-3.
  9. Chapman, James (2002). Saints and Avengers: British Adventure Series of the 1960s. I.B.Tauris. p. 81. ISBN 978-1-86064-753-6.
  10. Lisanti, Tom; Paul, Louis (2002). Film Fatales: Women in Espionage Films and Television, 1962-1973. McFarland. p. 258. ISBN 978-0-7864-1194-8.
  11. "Comic Book Urban Legends Revealed #44! | Comics Should Be Good! @ Comic Book Resources". Goodcomics.comicbookresources.com. 30 March 2006. Retrieved 23 July 2013.
  12. Sweeting, Adam (16 October 1993). "Back with a vengeance - The Avengers epitomised sixties cool - smart, suave and suggestive". The Guardian. p. 26.
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