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Nigel Kneale

Quatermass Memoirs, The (Classic Radio Sci-Fi)

  • Quatermass Memoirs, The (Classic Radio Sci-Fi)

    • Nigel Kneale

    • Andrew Keir (Read by)

    • Emma Gregory (Read by)

    • Zulema Dene (Read by)

    In the 1950s, the British public was gripped by three adult-oriented BBC science-fiction serials which became the keystone and benchmark for the genre on television. In many ways Professor Bernard Quatermass symbolised an era in which pioneering scientific discoveries encouraged both the hopes and the fears of a nation. Mixing extracts from the original BBC TV series with archive footage of real-life news events, interwoven with Nigel Kneales's narration and original drama segments, The Quatermass Memoirs looks at the genesis of the series, and how it was very much a product of its time. Now retired and living in the north of Scotland, Bernard Quatermass wants only to be left alone - but when a keen young reporter turns up at his door, for how long wil he manage to remain guarded about his past adventures?

Nigel Kneale was an acclaimed writer who won the Somerset Maugham Award for his short story collection Tomato Cain and Other Stories (1949). However, he is probably best known for his 'Quatermass' trilogy of science fiction BBC television serials starring the titular Professor - The Quatermass Experiment (1953), Quatermass II (1955) and Quatermass and the Pit (1958-59). In 1979, ITV brought Professor Quatermass back in Quatermass, and in 2005 BBC Four remade The Quatermass Experiment starring Jason Flemyng with Mark Gatiss and David Tennant. A five-part radio serial, The Quatermass Memoirs, was broadcast in 1996. Among Kneale's other renowned television productions are The Year of the Sex Olympics (1968) and The Stone Tape (1972). He also adapted two John Osborne plays, The Entertainer and Look Back in Anger, as film screenplays - both of which garnered him BAFTA nominations. Nigel Kneale died in 2006, aged 84.

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