First broadcast on FAB RADIO INTERNATIONAL at 19:00 on October 9th 2022

On this week’s VISION ON SOUND we welcome MICHAEL SEELY who is well known in Archive Television circles for the books he has written about certain television series, and for his biographies of some well recognised names from television production from the sixties and seventies.

PROPHETS OF DOOM, his unauthorised history of the BBC television series DOOMWATCH is very possibly the definitive current work detailing the production of that well-remembered and influential show that ran for three series between February 1970 and August 1972. This series, which told terrifying tales based around the fears of the possible corruption and future progress of science, as well as breaking the hearts of a nation after an incident at the end of a pier, was created by KIT PEDLAR and GERRY DAVIS, who had both written scripts for 1960s DOCTOR WHO which also examined the dramatic possibilities that came about when you chose to imagine what horrors some areas of modern science might unleash into the world.

Whether it was COMPUTERS seeking world domination, or the dehumanising possibilities of overzealous replacement of human organs and body parts with artificial equivalents, you can be pretty sure that they had a hand in it, as it were, and the controversy-creating series DOOMWATCH does seem to be the natural progression of all of their “What if…?’ discussions, dealing, as it did, with the terrors of plastic viruses, super evolved rats, pollution, and the consequences of unscientific experimentation when unfettered by any kind of morality or control.

KIT PEDLAR was brought aboard by the DOCTOR WHO production team to add his scientific imagination into the mix of the types of stories they wanted to tell, and his own somewhat fascinating life story was one of those that MICHAEL also felt compelled to cover in his well-received biography.

MICHAEL also wrote a biography of the much loved and well-regarded television director DOUGLAS CAMFIELD, whose distinctive touch graced many a series in the 1960s and 1970s, from SWIZZLEWICK, to BEAU GESTE, Z CARS to THE SWEENEY, PUBLIC EYE to THE LOTUS EATERS, DANGER UXB to VAN DER VALK, and many others, quite a few of which we have discussed in this show over the past couple of years.

In preparation for today’s programme, and because he also has a new book looking into the series coming out fairly soon, I rewatched one of his later works, the four part serial THE NIGHTMARE MAN adapted by ROBERT HOLMES for the BBC from the book CHILD OF VODYANOI by DAVID WILTSHIRE which terrified viewers on Friday evenings back in May 1981, so we also chat about that for a while.

PLEASE NOTE - For Copyright reasons, musical content sometimes has to be removed for the podcast edition. All the spoken word content remains (mostly) as it was in the broadcast version. Hopefully this won't spoil your enjoyment of the show.