Episode 16 – The Stone Tape with Una McCormack

 

(Jane Asher, having read the ending)

It's another very special episode of BERGCAST, as we're joined by our second-favourite Doctor in media, the tremendous Dr Una McCormack, with whom we're talking about the 1972 Kneale play The Stone Tape. In a discussion where we talk about the history of British manufacturing, the surprising role of Boromir, the value of fanfiction and parallels with classic Japanese horror, Una raises the very pertinent point of whether the story of a man's downfall really needs to be presented over the corpse of a woman, and we speculate as to what The Stone Tape would look like if it were feminist... and in space. 

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Episode 15 – Mark Gatiss on the legacy of Nigel Kneale

Mark Gatiss referred to Nigel Kneale as “the man who invented popular television”. 

It can be a curse of a writer tagged as ‘genre’ that they may never been seen alongside the very best. As Mark said when Kneale died, “He is amongst the greats – he is absolutely as important as Dennis Potter, as David Mercer, as Alan Bleasdale, as Alan Bennett, but I think because of a strange snobbery about fantasy or sci-fi, it’s never been quite that way.”

In this episode, we chat with Mark about his love for Nigel Kneale’s work, his influence and his legacy. Mark recalls the one time he met the man himself and how he tried to get greater industry recognition for Kneale. He also talks about following in Nigel’s footsteps by adapting Wells’s The First Men in the Moon, and the experience of making The Quatermass Experiment in 2005.

As ever, You can find BERGCAST on your favourite podcast outlets, and you can give it a listen here.