The sad news arrived today that Diana Rigg has died aged 82. What an amazing actor – I was so lucky to see her on stage twice – in ‘Humble Boy’ (2001) at the National and as Ranyevskaya in ‘The Cherry Orchard‘ at Chichester in 2008. She had an incredible presence on stage, formidable and hugely impressive. A very stylish actor, possessed of huge charisma – the sort of actor who just has ‘it‘ and to whom your eyes are just naturally drawn.
I think I first became aware of her as a youngster, watching her as Emma Peel in the repeats of ‘The Avengers‘ that Channel 4 showed in 1982/83. I just sort of fell in love with her, a hopelessly smitten teenager. Personally, it feels incredibly sad that the news of her death arrived at almost exactly the same time as my blu-ray of ‘The Cybernauts‘ and Marcus’ Hearn’s 50th anniversary book about ‘The Avengers‘ arrived in the post. ‘The Avengers‘ is a series that has been much in my mind recently, I watched quite a few series 4 and 5 episodes during lockdown – and Diana was as much a part of what made those so special as Patrick Macnee. Apart from their incredible chemistry, Diana brought an intelligence and playfulness to Emma Peel, combined with her ability to match any man in combat, her flirtatiousness, incredible charisma and striking beauty – it was an extremely potent combination. Intelligence, independence, and sexiness – that was a real rarity for female parts in the 1960’s and Diana really broke the mould in that respect.
She brought many of the same attributes to Tracy, the woman that James Bond fell in love with and married in ‘On Her Majesty’s Secret Service’, alongside a vulnerability which was little seen in “The Avengers‘. Largely because of Diana Rigg it is my favourite Bond film – if I am entirely honest, I’d rather Tracy had lived and Bond died in the gunfire at the end though.
Beyond that, in later life she was in two of my other favourite series – ‘Doctor Who‘ in the ‘Crimson Horror‘ as the horrific Mrs Gillyflower, with her brilliantly talented daughter Rachel Stirling, in a part especially written for her by Mark Gatiss. She again played mother to her real life daughter in ‘The Detectorists‘ – Veronica a bit of a middle class old horror, but whom eventually comes good for her daughter and her husband – the rather hapless Andy. She was terrific in both roles and was doing great work right up until her untimely death. She will be greatly missed.
Although she will always be the incredible, indomitable Mrs Peel to me. I’ll leave the final line though to James Bond, best read while listening to ‘We have all the time in the world’ sung by the great Louis Armstrong:
‘It’s all right. It’s quite all right, really. She’s having a rest. We’ll be going on soon. There’s no hurry, you see. We have all the time in the world.‘
Actually, no I won’t – to paraphrase Steed:
‘Ms Peel you are needed’
Thanks for everything Diana.
A Journal of Impossible Things 