Inspired by Scarfolk, the English town that still lives in the 1970s, we’re continuing with this ‘ere blog’s latest feature: Charley says.
The 1970s was a terrible time, of course, where the risks to people from everything from electricity cables to water to other people could not be overstated. It was horrifying. Particularly the rabies.
To save the public from these threats – and themselves – the British government authorised a series of public information films designed to scare the living daylights out of anyone who watched them. And each week, I intend to scare the living daylights out of you with a public information film or two – watch them, as they might just save your life.
This week: water. If you aren’t terrified of water, you should be, you raving loon. What’s the matter with you?
In the US: Saturday, 8pm/7c, 20th April 2013, BBC America
Nigel Kneale is something of a god on this blog. A revolutionary writer of some of the best scripts in British TV history, his effect can still be felt today. One of his most powerful and influential works was The Stone Tape, a genuinely scary scientific ghost story that has leant its name to a parapsychology concept: the idea that ghosts may be ‘memories’ of events somehow imprinted on buildings or the landscape. When you have a mo, watch it below…
The latest piece of British TV to owe a debt to The Stone Tape was Saturday’s episode of Doctor Who – Hide, which not only had a scientist investigating a haunted house with the help of scientific apparatus and a woman with psychic abilities, it was even set in the 70s.
Now, I have to admit I wasn’t sure what to expect of this. On the one hand, it was written by Neil Cross, who also wrote the rather dreadful Rings of Akhaten. On the other, Cross only got the job of writing Rings, because he’d apparently impressed Steven Moffat and co with the quality of this script. Cross also has ghost-story form, having written the recent BBC2 adaptation of MR James’s Whistle and I’ll Come To You.
So which Cross were we going to get, I was wondering: super-scary ghost-writing Cross or sucky singing child Cross?
Thankfully, it turned out to be the former. Here’s a trailer.
