December 31, 2017 and on iPlayer

2009: The village of Midwich is cut off – and fertile women become pregnant…

Roy Williams’ adaptation of John Wyndham’s 1957 novel very cleverly updates it (in a way that the 1995 John Carpenter version singularly failed to pull off) – although it does seem to assume that everyone knows the ending of the story with its descriptions in the first scene – and uses many of its 21st century elements to include the Graeae element i.e. what the BBC Radio 4 website describes as bringing “a new sensitivity to the iconic novel, trying to grapple with the complexity of difference”. Williams reinterprets the character of Gordon Zellaby, giving him a deaf daughter who finds herself (at least in her own mind) displaced in his affections in favour of the Children, and it’s in part through her – as well as the very Wyndham-esque portrayal of the Children – that we get the sense of alienation.

This new perspective allows us to get a different view of the Children and those around them, even if they are as manipulative as they’ve ever been. There’s the odd occasion where the pacing of the play suffers as the characters discuss their feelings (reminding me a little of scenes from Class where the leads stopped running to the rescue of their friend for a similar such discussion), but Williams doesn’t shy away from the nastiness inherent in Wyndham’s story, making the more general attack of the original book into something more visceral – a good place to end the first part.

Verdict: A different take that will make you reconsider aspects of the classic SF novel. 8/10

Paul Simpson

The script for the episode and more information can be found here at Graeae’s site.