BBC Radio 4 Extra, April 17, 2022

A concise guide to the work of the Quatermass creator…

April 28, 2022 marks the 100th birthday of Thomas Nigel Kneale, the creator of Kinvig, Beasts… and Quatermass. This month has seen various tributes – from live events screening his work with discussions afterwards, to full academic conferences – and Radio 4 Extra re-aired two recent versions of his plays, Matthew Graham’s The Stone Tape, and Toby Hadoke’s The Road. Fortuitously the latter only runs for 45 minutes and meant there was opportunity for Hadoke – whose book on Quatermass I am looking forward to reading – to present a 15 minute guide to his life.

There aren’t any real surprises here, but Hadoke deftly links aspects of Kneale’s life – such as the name of Victor Carroon’s wife to Kneale’s own fiancée, thence to where to find an illustration of Kneale! The focus is primarily on the 1950s – the three Quatermass serials and Nineteen Eighty-Four – but his other work gets fair mention, and Hadoke doesn’t disguise his feelings about the way that Kneale’s oeuvre has been – and to an extent still is – looked down on by certain self-appointed Guardians of What is Good.

There’s a decent amount of clips here, from Kneale himself as well as all three of the 1950s TV Quatermasses, and if you’re reading this site and somehow have failed to watch, hear or read his work, then it’s an excellent primer.

Verdict: An acknowledgement of the place of one of British SF’s primary storytellers. 9/10

Paul Simpson