Stingray, The Andersons’ first foray into colour, also got an audio upgrade. Long-term composing partner, Barry Gray, really upped his game for this series – bigger, bolder, brassier… simply better than anything he’d done on Fireball XL5 or Supercar. From the first percussive blast of the opening theme you know you’re in for a good time. It crashes out the speakers, driven by manic drums and brass stabs. “Stand by for action...!”

The quality on display here is hard to beat – there’s barely a bad note, although the obligatory Christmas theme isn’t exactly great. But there was a Christmas episode so there had to be some music, but I’d have left it off the disc and replaced it with the instrumental version of the closing song, which is way better than the version with lyrics [I can’t stand that song… sorry!].

Elsewhere it’s a game of spot what got directly reused… so many of the tracks made it into Thunderbirds, which is where you might recognise them from, especially the more nautical ones. Some got rewritten, such as ‘Tune of Danger’ – which was adapted and updated as the main theme for the episode ‘The Man from MI5’, one of Thunderbirds’ finest 50 minutes of spy-based adventure.

The music from ‘Big Gun’ drips with suspense and builds beautifully into hammer brass, the selection from ‘The Ghost Ship’ is spine-tingling stuff and ‘March of the Oysters’ might just be Barry best ever work. The CD is packed with gem after gem after gem. I can’t imagine not wanting to own this.

Put simply, this release is an essential purchase… go and order it now!

10

Anthony Clark