A for Andromeda to get a live remake like The Quatermass Experiment

David Tennant in the Quatermass Experiment

Just in case you missed it, wedged as it is under news of Kenneth Williams’ diaries being dramatised, the Media Guardian reports that BBC4 is to remake A for Andromeda. Just like last year’s The Quatermass Experiment, which featured new Doctor Who David Tennant, it’s going to be a condensed version of the original, performed live on the night.

In case you missed The Quatermass Experiment (it’s available on DVD if you want to catch up), it was actually rather good and quite creepy – a curious combination of theatre and television that’s so rare these days. Since I’m the proud possessor of the Quatermass Collection as well, I can say it was significantly better than the original, which was slow moving to say the least – of course, by the standards of the 1950s, the original was a veritable hurricane.

The original A for Andromeda titlesAs I recall, the story’s pretty good, despite being put together by Nobel Prize-winning physicist and “life evolved in space” nut Fred Hoyle. It bears remarkable similarities with the naffo Species, although it bears none of that movie’s deficiencies, so we know it can fit into a couple of hours without serious plot-curtailment. I have high hopes for this live version. No word yet on casting, but I suspect D Tennant will be a bit too busy to make an appearance this time round.

PS BBC4 again. They’ve definitely been at those super-wheaties.

PPS I had copies of the few remaining bits of A for Andromeda and its sequel The Andromeda Breakthrough back in the early 90s, but I purged them long ago in one of my Nights of the Long Video Knives. You can view the title sequences at TV Ark. While you’re at, have at look at the Ace of Wands titles, complete with Thames TV opener: they’re magnificent. They were victims of my library purge, too. Sigh.

Author

  • Rob Buckley

    I’m Rob Buckley, a journalist who writes for UK media magazines that most people have never heard of although you might have heard me on the podcast Lockdown Land or Radio 5 Live’s Saturday Edition or Afternoon Edition. I’ve edited Dreamwatch, Sprocket and Cambridge Film Festival Daily; been technical editor for TV producers magazine Televisual; reviewed films for the short-lived newspaper Cambridge Insider; written features for the even shorter-lived newspaper Soho Independent; and was regularly sarcastic about television on the blink-and-you-missed-it “web site for urban hedonists” The Tribe. Since going freelance, I've contributed to the likes of Broadcast, Total Content + Media, Action TV, Off The Telly, Action Network, TV Scoop and The Custard TV.