Episode 38 - The Spores of Nigel Kneale with Joel Morris

 

Comedy writer and Cunk creator Joel Morris joins Jon and Andy to discuss how Nigel Kneale has infected popluar culture like the spores about to fire from a creature that was once three astronauts.

Joel and writer Will Maclean have a new series of their hit podcast Broken Veil coming soon and you can join them on Patreon to support the venture here:

https://www.patreon.com/brokenveil/collections

Enjoy:

BERGCAST - Episode 37 - Toby's Hadoke's book on The Quatermass Experiment.

 

BERGCAST stalwart Toby Hadoke's long awaited tome is out!

Toby chats to Jon and Andy about its long gestation, the challenge of tenses and how to slay sacred cows respectfully.

BERGCAST - Episode 36 - Brian Cox

 

We're back with a new co-host and an amazing new guest in the shape of the GIANT that is Brian Cox. Andy and Jon talk to Brian about making The Year of the Sex Olympics, how he was cast, why he remains so fond of something from the very beginning of his HUGE career, and the fact he'd really like to play Quatermass some day...

There's also an extended intro to meeting co-host Andy Murray, Nigel Kneale's biographer.

Episode 34 -- Things Recorded in the Walls, feat. Brontë Schiltz

(note: not a picture of Brontë)

It's another episode with a genesis almost as troubled as our Quatermass Conclusion Conclusion. This time, Jon was unable to make our discussion with Gothic expert Brontë Schiltz last November at very short notice, so Howard went it alone for the first time. But then, a bunch of uncontrollable life circumstances leading to a massive upheaval meant that the recording languished in the walls of Howard's laptop for three months. We hope that you feel it's worth the wait, as we discuss the TV studio with horror in its walls, 70s pop pseudoscience and The Tiger Who Came to Tea, along with a whole lot else.

Find Brontë's links here and find BERGCAST in all your usual podcast places.

Episode 33 – Kinvig, feat. Gemma Arrowsmith

It had to happen. It's time for us to deal with the One Nigel Kneale Thing We Don't Particularly Like: Kinvig.

Joining us is comedy writer and performer Gemma Arrowsmith, whose new show Gemma Arrowsmith's Sketched Out has just dropped on BBC Radio 4, and we talk about why the live studio audience is going to find it funnier than we do at home, the wild transformation of situation comedy in the 1980s, and whether sci-fi nerds really have that much of a crossover with UFO fans.

Find us as usual on the all your favourite podcast outlets or give us a listen on the fancy widget below.

Episode 30 – Restoring Nigel Kneale at the BFI

In this episode of BERGCAST, we're joined by Dick Fiddy, Vic Pratt and Douglas Weir of the British Film Institute to talk about restoring and re-packaging Kneale's work for the centenary year, why archive TV matters, what's happening at the BFI this month and the upcoming release of the restored version of the BBC adaptation of Nineteen Eighty-Four. 

Nineteen Eighty-Four will be released on 11th April. Pre-order it here. 

If you're lucky enough to be able to get to London, you can book tickets for the Nigel Kneale season at the BFI this month here. And you can find out about the April 23rd Centenary day at Picturehouse Crouch End here.

Episode 29 – The Nigel Kneale Century

Contact is established!

It's what they call in media a Very Special Episode, because the BERGCAST team is celebrating the 2022 centenary of Nigel Kneale's birth. We're joined by friends of BERGCAST Andy Murray, Toby Hadoke (and also Toby's dog Bernard) to talk about only some of the things that have happened and will happen very soon to mark that.

The Nigel Kneale Centenary Celebration will be held at the Crouch End Picturehouse on April 23rd. You can find a full rundown of what's going on at nigelknealecentenary.com, or cut out the middlehuman and just buy your ticket here – but be quick, they're selling steadily. 

Did we mention Jane Asher will be there?

Toby's 7th Dimension special will air on Radio 4 Extra in the week running up to that – why not bookmark the schedules so you don't miss it? 

And you can pre-order your copy of Tomato Cain and Other Stories at the Comma Press site right now.

Oh, and let's not forget that we'll be posting frequent updates on our Twitter feed – follow us on @BERGCASTCalling.

Episode 28 – The Woman in Black (1989)

For our bumper sized Christmas episode, what better subject than a ghost story?

Taking a deep dive into the terrifying Kneale-scripted Christmas drama The Woman in Black we're joined by Robert Taylor, author of the forthcoming book Sound Haunting: The Making of Central Films’ The Woman in Black. In a lengthy and intimate discussion, we talk about the genesis of the drama, what happened when Nigel Kneale wrote the script too quickly, how a woman in a dress and a hat standing absolutely still can chill you to the bone, and the enduring power of Christmas TV memories.

Robert recently wrote an essay about The Woman in Black on Horrified.com, which you can read here. 

It only remains for us to wish you all a merry, and ghostly Christmas. We've got big news coming in the New Year, so stay tuned. Contact will remain established. 

Episode 27 – HMS Defiant (1962)

In this episode of BERGCAST we take to the high seas as, rather than performing our usual deep dive, we stay afloat in the Kneale-scripted 1962 broadsides-and-sails spectacular HMS Defiant. Joined by film academics Prof. Melanie Williams and Dr. Mark Fryers, we investigate whether a ship is the best metaphor for the British class system, how Dirk Bogarde went from being known for light comedies to being a go to for faintly pervy villains, why the British don't do revolutions and ask the question: is the real villain always in middle management? 

You can find Sixties Cinema Reconsidered here, Celluloid Tales: Norfolk Film History here, and Invictawood: The Story of Kent and the Silver Screen here.

Episode 26b – Stephen Bissette on The Witches

 

(Illustrations from SR Bissette's Thoughtful Creatures)

In this special mini-episode of BERGCAST, Jon and I talk some more with legendary comics illustrator and horror expert Stephen R Bissette, about the 1966 Hammer film The Witches and its legacy and we go into what Steve’s doing these days.

Stephen’s book on The Brood can be found here.

Studio of Screams is here.

SR Bissette’s Thoughtful Creatures is here.

Episode 26 – First Men in the Moon (1964), with Stephen R Bissette

 

Talking with us about 1964's First Men in the Moon, we're honoured to have as our guest horror legend Stephen R. Bissette, who although perhaps best known one as of the primary collaborators with Alan Moore on the seminal 80s run of Swamp Thing, has produced a significant corpus of writing on the horror genre in all media over the space of several decades, including, most recently, an exhaustive study of David Cronenberg's early highlight The Brood.

We discuss the one time Nigel Kneale shared a credit with Ray Harryhausen, why these films have resonated with us since childhood, how stop motion animation takes us right into the uncanny valley, and whether First Men in the Moon is really the first fully realised alien culture in cinema. 

And by the way, you can find Jon's other podcast, Due Signori in Giallo, at duesignori.cast.rocks.

Episode 25 – The Abominable Snowman, with John J. Johnston

In this episode, the voices of Jon and Howard are joined by the mellifluous and delightful tones of Egyptologist and Horrified editor-at-large John J. Johnston. Join us as we explore the early career of Peter Cushing, the history of imperialism and the 50s craze for Yeti movies, Nazi practical jokes and the transcendent, formative power of the media we loved as children. 

As usual, you can listen here, or find us at all your favourite podcasting venues. 

Episode 24 – Stephen Volk

This time we're delighted to be joined by legendary screenwriter Stephen Volk, known for a list of great TV and film scripts including The Awakening, Midwinter of the Spirit, Afterlife and, of course, Ghostwatch. in a wide-ranging discussion of Stephen's career, we talk about the legacy of Nigel Kneale, how The Stone Tape changed Stephen's life, and how Stephen's own work has itself changed lives in turn.

Find us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and all the other  usual places, and please like or subscribe. it means a lot.

Episode 23 – Stephen Gallagher

(We are very keen that you know that this isn't Stephen Gallagher. This is Chad.)

For this episode of BERGCAST, we were joined by veteran novelist and screenwriter Stephen Gallagher, who chatted with us about the trajectory of his career, and the influence of Nigel Kneale on his work. In a wide-ranging conversation, we talked about how a false memory of Quatermass and the Pit haunted Stephen for years, how Hollywood treats writer-creators, what Emma Peel and Bernard Quatermass would look like as a team, and whether more screenplays should be written using the Marvel Method.

You can find our podcast on Spotify and Apple, and on your favourite podcast app, or just listen below. 

Holiday Special – The Witches (1966) live

Recorded as live? Surely not...

It's a special one-off episode here. On October 31st, Jon and Howard were able to do one off recording of an episode with a live audience, as part of the RURAL GOTHIC Samhain Surprise live online event. We were honoured to be joined by actor, critic and writer Jonathan Rigby, to talk, appropriately enough, about the Kneale-scripted 1966 Hammer movie The Witches. It's an unedited conversation where we tackle everything from why older Hollywood leading ladies wound up making horror movies in the 60s to the meaning of the word "stichomythia".

Jon and Howard will be returning to Rural Gothic in only a few short days, as we're going to be talking at the RURAL GOTHIC Christmas Ghosts event on 30th December (buy tickets here) on the subject of Christmas 1972, television's spookiest Christmas.

Episode 21 – The Quatermass Conclusion, Part Two

Pictured: 2020 in retrospect

Once again we're joined by James Cooray Smith, journalist, expert and lovely bloke, for the final part of our discussion of the last televised Quatermass story, which makes this the Quatermass Conclusion Conclusion.

As we talk about the bleakest and most apocalyptic story of a pretty bleak canon, we also explore the links the 1979 ITV Quatermass has with Blood on Satan's Claw, compare Nigel Kneale with George Lucas and Charles Dickens, and what “aging well” really means.

Episode 20 – The Quatermass Conclusion, Part One

Time Out, 1979; artwork Mick Brownfield.

It took us four tries and the better part of a year finally to get a podcast about the final televised Quatermass story, 1979's ITV Quatermass, given a limited cinema release as The Quatermass Conclusion. We're joined by the endlessly patient and thoroughly lovely James Cooray Smith, journalist and cultural commentator, whose take on what is possibly the most 2020 of Quatermass stories is going to bring us to Christmas. 

And you won't have to wait too long for part two – we're posting it tomorrow. 

Episode 19 — Nigel Kneale and Woodfall, featuring Samira Ahmed

We were very excited to welcome the simply amazing Samira Ahmed to talk about the somewhat overlooked contribution Nigel Kneale made to the early Woodfall films, Look Back in Anger and The Entertainer. On the way we’ll examine the influence of Judith Kerr on Kneale’s work, what sets Kneale apart from writers like John Wyndham and Dennis Potter, and if Donald Pleasence ever looked young. 

Once again, you can find us on all your favourite podcast outlets. Hope you enjoy! 

Episode 18 – Beasts, Part 2

Artwork: Ash Loydon

Once again, the people at BERGCAST are  delighted to welcome Andrew Screen, writer of a forthcoming guide to Beasts, Nigel Kneale's terrifying 1976 anthology series. 

What was Our Nigel’s beef with the Hammer Family? How did a toy poodle play a part in one of the most chilling scenes ever shown on broadcast telly? Was there really a time when Bernard Horsfall strangled two beloved TV scientists in a single week? Which Hellraiser movie was the one with the spaceship?

Tap the play button to find out. 

We'd like to say a big thank you to Caroline Champion, Johnny Mains and Andy Murray for their help on this one. 

Episode 17 – Beasts, Part 1

For this episode, Jon and I are joined by Andrew Screen, writer of a forthcoming book about Nigel Kneale's anthology series Beasts to talk about that, and its predecessor, the Against the Crowd episode Murrain, which is for obvious reasons very close to my heart. 

Join us for a discussion of how great a terse character description can be, the truth about the farmer's name in Murrain, and what Pauline Quirke has to do with a talking Mongoose called Gef. 

Andrew was also kind enough to send us pictures (taken by Julian Jones) of the locations from Murrain as they are now. a few of which you can see here. 

All photos were taken by Julian Jones

As ever, you can find BERGCAST in all the usual podcast places, but for your convenience feel free to liten below. And remember that you can find us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter as @BERGCASTcalling. 

This is also a good time to point out that we're going to be recording a live BERGCAST on October 31st as part of the RURAL GOTHIC online symposium, a day-long event full of spooky goodness and we'll be talking about The Witches (the Hammer one, not the Angelica Huston one or the Anne Hathaway one) with film historian and actor Jonathan Rigby. Tickets are still available here.