First broadcast on FAB RADIO INTERNATIONAL at 19:00 on February 27th 2022

In last week’s VISION ON SOUND, WARREN CUMMINGS joined me to talk about NIGEL KNEALE’S classic 1950s creation QUATERMASS II starring JOHN ROBINSON in a beautifully crafted and ambitiously epic tale of paranoia, conspiracy, human self-deception, and an alien invasion by stealth and guile played out in front of the backdrop of a post-war Britain still held in the grip of rationing, conformity, and cold-war fears.

By the time our episode ended, we’d only got up to the point in the story just before the end of episode four when ROGER DELGADO playing journalist HUGH CONRAD is desperately trying to tell the world about the alien invasion taking place at the industrial plant at Winnerton Flats which had previously only been thought to be creating synthetic food through some mysterious new process.

Once we’d realised that we’d overshot our allotted running time talking about that, I invited WARREN to give me his impressions of another classic collaboration between the BBC, Rudolph Cartier and Nigel Kneale first broadcast just under a year earlier in DECEMBER 1954, their twice-performed live adaptation of George Orwell’s novel “NINETEEN EIGHTY-FOUR” the recording of at least one version of which does survive, which was quite difficult for modern viewers to track down, but is about to get a brand new release from the BFI.

NINETEEN EIGHTY-FOUR stars one of WARREN’s favourite actors, PETER CUSHING, alongside YVONNE MITCHELL, DONALD PLEASANCE, LEONARD SACHS and another actor associated with a later QUATERMASS serial, ANDRE MORELL, alongside a couple of prolific actors and familiar television faces who would also both appear in QUATERMASS II, WILFRED BRAMBELL and HILDA FENEMORE, because, in the end all things are connected.

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.