LINDA THORSON
Linda Thorson returns to The Avengers in Big Finish’s new audio drama. But who’s who?
A lovely glass of end-of-episode champers with Tara King herself. Splendid.
THINGS ARE RARELY what they seem in the kaleidoscopic world of cult spy show The Avengers. So it’s no surprise that original star Linda Thorson’s return to the franchise is set to upend your expectations.
As the plucky Tara King, Thorson stood pistol to brolly with Patrick Macnee’s John Steed, battling threats to British security. Now she joins Big Finish’s range of audio adventures based on TV Comic’s Avengers strips of the ‘60s. But she’s not reprising the role of
Tara; instead she’s playing Russian grandmother Tatiana, who’s masquerading as Gertrude, aunt of Steed’s boss Mother. Never trust anyone in the spy game…
“I loved playing Tatiana,” Thorson tells Red Alert. “She’s so over the top. She’s such an imperious and outrageous character, and Big Finish have made Gertrude, who was in Swaziland, a real Cassandra. She predicts catastrophe all the time, so she’s the complete opposite. I love the contrast.”
Big Finish has its own Steed and Tara in Julian Wadham and Emily Woodward, who’ll co-star with Thorson in April’s release “Mother’s Day”. How did it feel for her to step into this new iteration of The Avengers? “It was very strange when I knew I was going to meet Emily Woodward today. We happen to have the same agent and she’s divine and adorable. But I did think,
‘I’m going to be meeting Tara King,