Kneale Before Nigel

A look at the works of blog god, British TV playwright Nigel Kneale

It’s Hammer Time!: Quatermass II (1957)

26 October 2012 Natalia Romanova 1 Comment

Well, Hammer have taken me a little bit by surprise this week by uploading some more movies, so in a change of plans, here’s the wonderful Quatermass II for you to enjoy. The sequel to The Quatermass Experiment, it needs no introduction, but in case I’m wrong on that, not only can you read that previous entry where I do introduce it, Hammer historian Marcus Hearn will tell you more about it first when you click on ‘Play’.

Personally, I think it’s the better of the three Hammer Quatermass movies: Quatermass comes across as less of a dick, it’s got Sid James and William Franklyn in the cast, and it’s faster paced.

You don’t need to have seen the first to know whats’ going on so enjoy!

It's Hammer Time!

It’s Hammer Time!: The Quatermass Xperiment (1955)

21 September 2012 Natalia Romanova 5 Comments

Time to start a new mini-series: It’s Hammer Time!.

For decades, one of the biggest names in British movie production was Hammer. Famous for horror movies, particularly ones starring Christopher Lee as Dracula and Peter Cushing as Van Helsing, the studios were an integral part of British movie production and starting today, for a limited run, I’m going to be giving you a chance to watch a glorious smattering of them in HD.

We’re going to start with The Quatermass Xperiment, based on the famous BBC serial by Nigel Kneale of the (almost) same name and starring Brian Donlevy as the eponymous Quatermass. In it, the British Rocket Group sends an experimental rocket into space, but when it comes down again, all but one of the astronauts is missing and the surviving astronaut is different somehow. What happened? BRG’s Professor Quatermass is determined to find out.

When first broadcast on the BBC in the early 1950s, the six-part The Quatermass Experiment emptied the streets and changed the face of British television forever. It spawned two BBC follow-up series the same decade – Quatermass II and the jewel in the series’ crown, Quatermass and The Pit – and an ITV series at the end of the 70s called simply Quatermass. BBC4 even remade The Quatermass Experiment as a live broadcast, just as the original had been, starring David Tennant, Adrian Dunbar, Jason Flemyng and Mark Gatiss among others, back in 2005.

Taking advantage of the original series’ notoriety and shocks, in 1955, Hammer took it, condensed it down to a single X-rated movie (hence the slight change of name), gave it an American lead and changed the ending slightly. It was popular enough that Hammer was able to film Quatermass II, again starring Donlevy, a couple of years later, and in 1967, Quatermass and the Pit, starring Andrew Keir. 

But for your delight, here’s the first of those movies, direct from Hammer (yes, it’s still going). I’ve preceding it with Hammer’s own documentary, written by film historian Marcus Hearn. Enjoy!

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The Weekly Play

The Wednesday Play: The Year of the Sex Olympics (1968)

4 July 2012 Rob Buckley 5 Comments

The Year of the Sex Olympics

When BBC2 launched in 1964, it was the first British TV station to broadcast 625 lines of picture, rather than the standard 405 lines of BBC1 and ITV. Yes, BBC2 was the BBC HD of its day – take that, US TV, with your 525 lines of NTSC (Never Twice the Same Colour) goodness.

To show off its technological superiority, one of the first regular programmes on the station was Theatre 625, a 90-minute play slot that ran from 1964 to 1968, giving us 114 separate plays (the last year’s worth in colour, since BBC2 was also the first European channel to broadcast in colour), most of which, in typical BBC fashion, have been wiped.

Of the plays that were made, perhaps the most famous are John Hopkins’ four-part Rashomon-esque Talking To A Stranger, which starred Judi Dench and told the same story from four different viewpoints – it was voted the 78th Greatest British Television Programme by industry experts and was reviewed at the time as “the first authentic masterpiece written directly for television”.

Also of note was a remake of blog god Nigel Kneale’s 1954 adaptation of 1984 and the strand’s penultimate play, also by Kneale (who now has his own category on the blog, incidentally): the highly prophetic and highly appropriate for this month of all months, The Year of The Sex Olympics, which is today’s Wednesday Play. Follow me after the jump to find out more.

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The Weekly Play

The Wednesday Play: 1984 (1954)

13 June 2012 Rob Buckley 8 Comments

People elevated to God-like status logo

Time to induct a new member into the pantheon of blog gods: Nigel Kneale, the god of writing innovation and scary predictions.

Kneale was one of the first TV playwrights and drama writers, famously emptying the streets of Britain with The Quatermass Experiment, a six-part 1953 science-fiction serial that revolutionised television and brought intelligent science-fiction to the masses.

Kneale principally remains famous for the character of Professor Bernard Quatermass, who went on to appear in three further TV series on both the BBC and ITV as well as three Hammer Horror movies, a radio play and 2005 BBC4 remake.

But Kneale was one of television great trailblazers. As well as predicting reality TV in the play, The Year of the Sex Olympics, he also created the idea of the scientific supernatural play for TV with The Stone Tape, in which scientists investigate the supernatural and discover that houses and stone can act as a recording material for events, thus creating ghosts when they ‘play back’ the event – something still described in psychic investigations as the ‘stone tape’ phenomenon.

For this, his many other works and his influence on television and film, Nigel Kneale has been made a blog god. Here’s a lovely documentary to explain in greater detail why he’s so brilliant.

But back in 1954, Kneale managed to empty the streets of Britain a second time, as well as cause questions to be asked in Parliament about the BBC’s moral standards. How? With an adaptation of George Orwell’s 1984 starring Peter Cushing and future Quatermass André Morrell that was voted one of the 100 Greatest British Television Programmes of the 20th century. It’s our Wednesday Play and you can watch it after the jump.

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Events

Derby Quad – Year of the Sex Olympics and Sapphire and Steel showings

2 June 2009 Rob Buckley 1 Comment

The Year of the Sex Olympics
I don’t normally cover “up north” – I’m sure there are better sources of information than I, for starters – but thanks to this brave new web world I’ve entered recently, I’ve just learnt via Twitter about some interesting showings at Derby QUAD as part of their “Future is Now” season.

You can book online right now.