In Review: The Quatermass Experiment: The Making of TV’s First Sci-Fi Classic

By downthetubes Guests on June 4, 2025

The Quatermass Experiment: The Making of TV’s First Sci-Fi Classic by Toby Hadoke, published by Ten Acre Films | ISBN: 978-1908630890

Review by Andrew Pixley

The fact that this superb volume has taken its author, Tony Hadoke, some 36 years to assemble – as he explains in his introduction – is probably a key reason as to why it is such a superb volume.

The changes in technology in recent decades and the increased access to archival material via physical examination or electronic replication has allowed a massive shift in the way that television and film has been researched, studied and presented. Access to editions of a document as basic as the BBC’s listing magazine Radio Times – to harvest basic data such as cast list, synopsis and background feature material – used to require a journey of several hours on rail or road around the UK to the nearest major city library that still retained bound volumes of vintage back-numbers sitting largely unregarded on its imposing shelves. Now, thankfully, if you need to do the same, you can just click here, from anywhere in the world.

The data – the facts, figures, dates, times, places, numbers of chairs – is one thing that I think we’re all agreed has been made so much more accessible and time-effective by the very technology that used to be the sci-fi element of a lot of these sci-fi shows.

But the skill in assembling the sheer ‘data’ and shaping it to tell a story is still a very rare craft. And it’s not only a skill that author Toby Hadoke fortunately has in abundance, it’s one that he started to develop a very, very long time ago.

Toby’s study concerns The Quatermass Experiment, a landmark television sci-fi thriller serial which aired on BBC tv in 1953 – a point in time so early that, frankly, television didn’t really know what sci-fi was, because it was still very preoccupied by trying to find out what television itself was. Across six summer Saturday evenings, it chronicled the ill-fated flight of Britain’s first space rocket, and the terrifying mutation of the single astronaut who returned to London into an alien life form, sprawling across the stonework of Westminster Abbey and threatening to put an end to humanity.

But while it was the rockets and monsters and early small screen exposure of genre trappings that nailed the place of The Quatermass Experiment in television history, the true value in the piece was how its scriptwriter Nigel Kneale took the trappings of tatty imported B-features and crafted a drama about how people reacted to the situation.

And that’s the same skill that Toby Hadoke has used some 72 years later to bring all manner of memos and documents and cuttings to life.

The content of this beautifully presented book – which even offers the reader photographic plate insert pages of rare production shots from this largely lost programme – is a very fine example of its kind. For the four missing instalments that concluded the narrative, there are some very finely balanced synopses of the on-screen action to ensure that the reader has full context; this may sound simple, but synopses are in fact things that can work very badly very easily, yet here the words fit together to give a sense of plot progression and proportion. This is naturally backed up by the research from myriad sources – the data about when and where and how, harvested from storylines and camera scripts and prop lists and promotional blurb… all the facts and figures that one has come to expect as a basic for a work of this nature.

Astronaut Victor Carroon (Duncan Lamont) emerges from the rocket, met by wife Judith (Isabel Dean) and Quatermass (Reginald Tate). Photo taken on set of the BBC's The Quatermass Experiment by Nigel Kneale — Astronaut Victor Carroon (Duncan Lamont) emerges from the rocket, met by wife Judith (Isabel Dean) and Quatermass (Reginald Tate). Photo taken on set of the BBC’s The Quatermass Experiment by Nigel Kneale

But the real strength of the finished volume is its approach to the people. Anyone who has heard Toby’s numerous podcasts or the interviews that he has conducted with other creatives on assorted shiny discs will know that – as a creative himself rather than an industry outsider – he is well equipped to understand how writers, directors and performers think and feel and operate, and he invariably uses these skills to extract from them an engaging, enjoyable and educational insight into how such notable works come into being.

And furthermore, in this instance, Toby has had 36 years since he started writing to and phoning and meeting and talking to the people who made this programme. Many of whom – given the fact that they’d made the programme 36 years before he started writing to and phoning them – are no longer with us.

And it’s these insights that really make this book so special. These are not just lists of names on a roller caption or alongside a graphic in the Radio Times. The words bring them to life – just as the teleplay did with Professor Quatermass and his team – and set their work on this landmark serial in context with their lives and careers. Two of the best chapters are devoted to Reginald Tate (who played Quatermass) and to the much-documented Nigel Kneale. Reading about the former is a delight, because it’s the first time in my experience that I’ve understood how his career had developed. And while the latter has been covered many, many, many times before, the study of the Manx author presented here is a rich and lively affair, fuelled by quotes not just from the man himself, but by many new comments from those who were closest to him – and conveying very clearly not just his ambitions, but also his sense of mischief.

Similarly, all those others involved in turning pulp hokum concepts into something dramatic and unsettling across six instalments are also given their moments to shine, uncovering unexpected and delightful elements of their lives away from the confines of the studios at Alexandra Palace, and often allowing them through their own words and experiences to explain what the industry was like at this primordial stage as TV crews undertook projects every bit as experimental as the professor’s rocket mission.

It’s not just the dates and times and studios and budget figures. It’s the story and the people who told the story.

And in the same way that the original 1953 television creation of The Quatermass Experiment was of sufficient quality to merit its continual celebration, seeing TV history being presented so richly in this manner means that celebration is more than earned by this engrossing, skilfully assembled publication.

Andrew Pixley

• The Quatermass Experiment: The Making of TV’s First Sci-Fi Classic by Toby Hadoke, published by Ten Acre Films | ISBN: 978-1908630890 | Available direct from the publisher here (new stock arriving 9th June 2025) | Buy it from AmazonUK (Affiliate Link)

Andrew Pixley is a retired data developer. For the last 30 years he’s written about almost anything to do with television if people will pay him – and occasionally when they won’t. In addition to his work for various publishers, he is a regular contributor to CST Online

Toby Hadoke is an award winning actor and comedian, and an expert on classic TV science fiction and British actors, and has written frequently about both: his expertise often being called upon by newspapers, DVD producers and documentary makers. He is a regular contributor to The Guardian.

Toby’s one man show, Moths Ate My Doctor Who Scarf, enjoyed great success at the Edinburgh Fringe before embarking on a national tour, international dates and a West End run. The radio version was released on CD by the BBC (AmazonUK Affiliate Link) and was nominated for a Sony Award.

The follow up – My Stepson Stole My Sonic Screwdriver – was equally acclaimed and joined its predecessor for a double bill at the Garrick Theatre. He also created a podcast, Doctor Who: Toby Hadoke’s Time Travels.

His radio work (which includes afternoon plays, a Fright Night presentation and topical comedy) has been nominated in the BBC Audio Drama Awards and selected for Radio 4’s Pick of the Week.

Toby is a regular performer at 53two in Manchester with his monthly show, Testing, Testing, next returning on 29th June. His roles as an actor include roles in Waterloo Road, Holby City, An Adventure in Space and Time, Phoenix Nights, The Forsyte Saga, the feature film Six Minutes to Midnight and dozens of radio plays.