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.

Episode 35 – Quatermass 70, with James Swanton, Toby Hadoke and Hermetic Arts

This episode had an unavoidable delay, but it's worth it, as Jon talks in a round table with spooky dramaturges extraordinary Carrie Thompson and Chris Lincé of Hermetic Arts, the monstrously talented actor James Swanton and BERGCAST's friend and undisputed renaissance man Toby Hadoke about the 70th Anniversary recreation of The Quatermass Experiment that was held in Alexandra Palace in Autumn 2023.

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 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. 

Episode 3 - The Quatermass Xperiment (1955)

Quatermass gets Hammered, with Brian Donlevy.

This episode we're joined by BFI patron Dave Thomas, writer of Hammer: Back From The Dead, to look at Quatermass's first big screen adventure.

On the way we'll look at the origins of this film and what it meant for Hammer, why Brian Donlevy might actually be the villain of the piece and what connects The Quatermass Xperiment with the Marlboro Man.

We'll also deal with cathartic memories of Britain's scariest comic...

...and investigate just what the bloody hell is going on with that US poster.

Listen here, at the BERGCAST site, or on iTunes.

Episode 2 - The Quatermass Experiment - Part Two

BERGCAST reaches the Hadoke conclusion as Toby and I finish our look at the original serial.

If you've ever wondered whether it was really true that Nigel Kneale didn’t know how he was going to finish The Quatermass Experiment when the first episode went out or if anything was recorded of episodes 3-6, I hope you'll find our conversation of interest.

As mentioned in the episode, here's the link to the common terms in fingerprint analysis. Fascinating stuff, even if I'm still not sure why Inspector Lomax needed Victor Caroon's so badly.

You can listen to BERGCAST here, at the BERGCAST site, and via iTunes. 

Episode 1 - The Quatermass Experiment - Part One

BERGCAST finally crashlands somewhere near Croydon with its inaugural episode, first of a two-part exploration with performer, writer, broadcaster and author of an upcoming Quatermass book, Toby Hadoke.

For gallivanting reasons, I couldn't make the recording session, so Jon and Toby go ahead without me, and in this episode they explore what the deal is with Inspector Lomax and the Loch Ness Monster, whether a cast member's beef with a cat got the poor thing sacked from the production, and whether everyone really came out and took a bow at the end of “State of Emergency”.

I find The Quatermass Experiment pretty haunting. It's not the show that was broadcast – it's a fragmentary copy of it. To see the original drama, you would have had to have been there in 1953, watching the actors play live. This is only the result of a camera pointing at the TV. In a sense, it's not a recording of the programme, it's a recording of the experience of watching the programme. It's largely lost to memory. It'd take a miracle to be able to see the rest of it, and it's gradually on its way to leaving the preserve of living memory. More or less everyone significant involved in its making is gone. We're watching a blurry facsimile of the work of the dead. It's a ghost of television.

But it's also really great. I suppose an expectation that something from 1953 is going to be a bit rubbish by modern standards, but really, no. Kneale's writing is poetic. It is alive, it is alive.

You can listen to BERGCAST here, at the BERGCAST site, and, when all the pings happen and contact has been established, via iTunes.