With its silent delinquent nuns, the premise of a new young medic arriving at a university campus was turned by writer Andrew Davies into something that was at once a critique of higher education policies, completely surreal and dreamlike, and very funny with it. Trailer for a repeat 1984 screening of the BBC’s Day of the Triffids. As a result of the transmission, MPs in parliament questioned the BBC’s tendency on Sunday nights to pander to sexual and sadistic tastes. It turned out to be an incredibly influential and ambitious adaptation, with scenes such as the Two Minutes Hate being indelible. Kneale also had a hand in adapting Orwell’s novel for a TV production that has recently been restored, and which pitched Peter Cushing, Donald Pleasence, Yvonne Mitchell and André Morell into the world of Airstrip One. Follow-ups Quatermass II (1955) and Quatermass and the Pit (1958) continued the adventures of professor Bernard Quatermass, and also spawned a series of film remakes. Sadly much of the original is lost, as it was transmitted live. Sometimes described as the first purpose-written sci-fi for adults on British television, Nigel Kneale delivered a series that was scientifically plausible, nerve-jangling and unlike anything the BBC had made before that point.
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