In addition to continuing its work recovering lost films, the Film is Fabulous! team have just announced the recovery of a high quality version of a The Day of the Triffids radio rarity.
Film is Fabulous! endeavour to provide a comprehensive service to elderly film collectors and their estates. This frequently means non-film material is taken from an enthusiast’s home, when the entire collection is removed for cataloging. This is, of course, done with the owner’s consent.
Recently, a number of films were donated by a former BBC employee. With these films were reel-to-reel recordings, made in August 1968, from the original masters of The Day of the Triffids, author John Wyndham’s iconic apocalyptic SF story, which had been broadcast on Radio 4 FM in June and July that year, and later transmitted via the World Service.
Divided by blindness and societal breakdown, humanity is at the mercy of the carnivorous Triffids. Repurposing Giles Cooper‘s 1957 six-part adaptation of The Day of the Triffids, produced by Peter Watts, the post-apocalyptic adventure stars Gary Watson as Bill Massen, Hammer legend Barbara Shelley (Quatermass and the Pit) as Josella Playton and Last of the Summer Wine’s Peter Sallis as Coker. Also in the cast are Doctor Who names Christopher Bidmead, David Brierley and Peter Pratt, and Paul Temple radio star Marjorie Westbury.
The complete copies recovered by Film is Fabulous! are of very high quality, and will replace the current versions previously rebroadcast on Radio 4 Extra and BBC Sounds.
Keith Wickham and Dr. Steve Arnold of The Radio Circle, a group of enthusiasts and collectors who have a passion for listening to radio, were delighted to receive the newly recovered recordings.
“The programme was sold overseas by BBC Transcription Services (TS) and was edited for time etc.,” Steve notes. “So a copy has always existed. A commercial release on CD included some (but not all) of the edits as extras. However, they were badly, and pointlessly, noise reduced, so the only copy [sic] could offer to the BBC before was a full version using the TS recording as a base, with poor off-air material inserted where TS had edited.”
This is just another example of the rare, and culturally important, material that sits in private collections within the UK.
If you are a collector who thinks has film or audio material that might not be in the archives of its broadcasters or current owners, please contact Film is Fabulous!
The current BBC Radio Collection edition of the 1968 The Day of the Triffids forms part of BBC Audiobooks’ “Classic Radio Sci-Fi” series. Other titles in the series are Aliens in the Mind and The Quatermass Memoirs.
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• The current BBC Radio Collection edition of the 1968 The Day of the Triffids forms part of BBC Audiobooks’ “Classic Radio Sci-Fi” series
Thanks to David Bickerstaff, Alex Fitch and Andrew Pixley for cover artist information
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John is the founder of downthetubes, launched in 1998. He is a comics and magazine editor, writer, and Press Officer for the Lakes International Comic Art Festival. He also runs Crucible Comic Press.
Working in British comics publishing since the 1980s, his credits include editor of titles such as Doctor Who Magazine and Overkill for Marvel UK, Babylon 5 Magazine, Star Trek Magazine, and its successor, Star Trek Explorer, and more. He also edited the comics anthology STRIP Magazine and edited several audio comics for ROK Comics; and has edited several comic collections and graphic novels, including volumes of “Charley’s War” and “Dan Dare”, and Hancock: The Lad Himself, by Stephen Walsh and Keith Page.
He’s the writer of comics such as Pilgrim: Secrets and Lies for B7 Comics; “Crucible”, a creator-owned project with 2000AD artist Smuzz; and “Death Duty” and “Skow Dogs”, with Dave Hailwood.
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Do you have any idea who the artist was on those covers?
Yes, thanks to David Bickerstaff and Alex Fitch for cover artist information, the covers featured are by the late Chris Achilléos; later covers in the range were by Frazer Irving