IF IT wasn't for Honor Blackman, we wouldn't have had Buffy.

The actress paved the way for independent action-women on the small screen thanks to her role as karate-chopping Cathy Gale in The Avengers in the early 1960s.

Forty years on, Blackman is celebrating the women who changed the world in her one-woman show, which comes to the Nuffield Theatre, Southampton next month.

As Wayward Women shows, Blackman's leather-clad Avengers character was in a grand tradition of powerful women who altered the perceptions of the world.

In the musical show, she brings to life such formidable characters as Eleanor Roosevelt, Lilian Baylis, Dorothy Parker, Edith Sitwell, Barbara Cartland, Marlene Dietrich and Queen Elizabeth I.

Although still best-known for The Avengers, Blackman has enjoyed a busy and varied career on both stage and screen.

Her most famous film role was Pussy Galore in the James Bond film Goldfinger. Other screen credits include So Long at the Fair, in which she starred with Dirk Bogarde, and The Virgin and the Gypsy.

On stage, she has appeared in the West End in Wait Until Dark, Who Killed Santa Claus? and, more recently, The Vagina Monologues.

You can see Honor Blackman and Wayward Women at the Nuffield Theatre on Sunday May 18. n For tickets and information, call the box office on 023 8067 1771.