Don Leaver, who has died aged 86, was an award-winning television director and producer responsible for many hours of popular drama, notably as one of the key contributors to the success of the quirky adventure series The Avengers. He directed the first episode and stayed with the show as it transformed from a traditional thriller into an offbeat fantasy drama that sold worldwide and was a prime-time hit in the US.
Having cut his teeth on the ABC crime drama Police Surgeon (1960), starring Ian Hendry, Leaver was a natural choice to migrate to its follow-up project, The Avengers, in which Hendry, now playing a different character, was joined by Patrick Macnee’s shady agent John Steed. Leaver and his equally inventive and dynamic colleague Peter Hammond directed the majority of episodes in that first year, compensating for what they often felt were below-par scripts by adopting an unusual but eye-catching visual style. This was not always easy to achieve, because the fraught productions frequently went out live.
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