Finding it increasingly difficult to find anything worth watching on modern television, comic artist and writer Keith Page – creator of The Adventures of Charlotte Corday, Strawjack and Hancock – The Lad Himself, with Stephen Walsh – finds it more interesting to go back to the dramas of the 1960s through to the 1980s. 

“There was a far wider selection of themes, sharp scripts and no ‘agendas’ or padded-out serials,” he feels.

“Watched now, it is surprising what was achieved with relatively low budgets, little in the way of special effects and a small screen. If you accept the limitations of the period these creations are still very watchable.”

Here is a selection of the better offerings, in Keith’s opinion. “Then, as now, there was a great deal of the second rate, but some of these still shine out over the decades,” he says.

The reviews featured here are by Keith. Additional information on DVD releases assembled by John Freeman

Out of the Unknown
1965 – 1971

Created By: Irene Shubik (The Wednesday Play, Rumpole of the Bailey)

I will say that some of the sets, hardware and costumes now look like early Doctor Who efforts. However, there are serious stories, some adapted from the works of authors like JG Ballard, John Wyndham and Isaac Asimov. 

A recurrent theme is the unforeseen consequences of a new invention or technology and there is a rather weird pervading atmosphere completely unlike similar US series like The Twilight Zone. 

A story set on a fictitious Mars with canals and humanoid Martians is followed by a piece featuring an ordinary contemporary city setting. The more mundane settings often have the most surprising endings.

• The 20 surviving episodes of Out of the Unknown are available on DVD (AmazonUK Affiliate Link) – but it isn’t cheap!

This extensive seven-disc DVD box set collects all 20 surviving episodes from the four original series, along with an extensive and comprehensive collection of extra features including one incomplete episode, four episode reconstructions, eleven audio commentaries, extensive stills galleries, an archival interview with director James Cellan Jones, and a newly-created 42-minute documentary with original cast and crew members and rarely seen fragments from lost episodes

There’s more information here about this release on the BFI web site

• Mark Bould, a Reader in Film and Literature at UWE Bristol, co-editor of the journal Science Fiction Film and Television and of the book series Studies in Global Science Fiction, has posted his reviews of Out of the Unknown to his own site

• Out of the Unknown – a Guide to the Legendary BBC Series
By Mark Ward, Christopher Perry and Richard Down
Kaleidoscope Publishing | ISBN: 978-1900203104

Based on BBC records and the memories of production personnel, this 496-page book, available here from TV Brain, is augmented by over 2000 photographs from the series including thousands of telesnaps. These priceless records of lost stories, taken by John Cura, were loaned to Kaleidoscope by Irene Shubik, the series’ creator, who also wrote the introduction. This book is a Limited Edition book, with donations from each sale going to the RNLI.

Quatermass and the Pit
1959 

Created by: Nigel Kneale

The real daddy of them all – and probably Nigel Kneale’s masterpiece. Better than the Hammer film version and much superior to the two earlier Quatermass serials. 

As usual, Kneale conjures up a building feeling of unease and watched for the first time you have no idea where the story is going. Straight forward science fiction is blended with ancient witchcraft in an unusual way the production comes across as extremely creepy even today.

The latter series were almost entirely horror related and quite different. Some episodes have not survived but have been “reconstructed” with stills and audio, not really satisfactorily. 

All are thought-provoking, with none of the modern syndrome of ‘padding out’ to make a series. Indeed, a lot of modern series could probably be much better made with half the episodes.

• The Quatermass Collection: The Quatermass Experiment / Quatermass 2 / Quatermass & the Pit is available on DVD (AmazonUK Affiliate Link)

The three original and groundbreaking 1950s BBC television series, one of the very first regular SF programmes on British television. 

• The BBC has its own short guide to its production of Quatermass and the Pit here

• The Quatermass Appreciation Society

Nigel Kneale’s Beasts
1976 

Created by Nigel Kneale

A collection of hour-long one-offs with supernatural/ paranormal themes,” Keith notes. “A man tries to turn himself into a wolf, a poltergeist haunts a seedy supermarket, an actor is obsessed with the monster he is playing and a very unpleasant artifact from the past is fond. Best forgotten is a story about a phantom dolphin which verges on unintentional comedy. 

As is usual with Kneale, you never actually see the menace but a sense of dread gradually builds up and there is not a happy end to any of these tales. 

The best story is probably a duo piece about ordinary people in an ordinary house surrounded by a plague of intelligent rats. Genuinely unsettling.”

Also included is “Murrain” – a pilot for the series, an interesting study in countryside witchcraft. 

• “Wait ’til he’s hungry” – Nigel Kneale’s Beasts

Andrew Screen, author of The Book of Beasts, explores a ‘touchstone of folk horror and hauntology’, the seminal 1976 series Beasts by Nigel Kneale…​

• Book of Beasts, The: Folklore, Popular Culture and Nigel Kneale’s ATV TV Series (AmazonUK Affiliate Link)

Nigel Kneale is perhaps best known for his pioneering work in television fantasy, notably the creation of Quatermass, and his landmark adaptation of George Orwell’s 1984 for the BBC. This book is the first in-depth study of another, arguably lesser known but equally as important, Kneale creation: the 1976 Folk Horror anthology television series, Beasts. Each of the six episodes of Beasts was a stand-alone supernatural drama exploring themes and ideas prevalent throughout Kneale’s work, all within the confines of a lowly British television budget.

From pilot episode “Murrain” to cult favourite “Baby”, Beasts charted an uncanny British landscape, where the ghost of a dolphin haunts an aquarium and a supermarket is plagued by a mysterious animalistic presence. In researching and writing this book, author Andrew Screen was given rare access to Kneale’s original scripts and production paperwork and provides an exclusive account of Kneale’s trials and tribulations in developing the series. There are also interviews with members of cast and crew, a discussion of episode treatments that were prepared but never realised – and the reasons why Kneale abandoned these at an early stage. Moreover, each storyline is contextualised with real life developments and events, exploring the mythological and cultural inspirations that place the series within its immediate historical framework. Written with full permission from the Kneale estate, The Book of Beasts is a comprehensive overview of a cult television series and its enduring impact on viewers today. With a foreword by Johnny Mains.

• Into the Unknown: The Fantastic Life of Nigel Kneale by Andy Murray

Since the earliest blossoming of British television drama, scriptwriter Nigel Kneale has been a seminal figure. His BBC Quatermass serials were seismic events in Fifties popular culture, becoming internationally successful when adapted for the big screen. His later TV plays, such as The Road, The Stone Tape and The Year of the Sex Olympics, skilfully blended elements of science fi ction and the ghost story, and remain hugely influential classics.

This fully revised new edition of Kneale’s biography charts his extraordinary career, from his childhood on the Isle of Man, to his fraught days at the BBC, strange adventures in Hollywood, and eventually status as a legend to legions of devotees. It draws on a wealth of research and many hours of interviews with the subject himself, as well as prominent admirers including John Carpenter, Ramsey Campbell, Grant Morrison, Russell T Davies, and Mark Gatiss and Jeremy Dyson of the League of Gentlemen.

Supernatural
1977 

Created and mostly written by Robert Muller

A very classy collection of Victorian horror stories, each introduced by a member of the fictitious “Club of the Damned”. Themes include vampires, werewolves, a really spooky doll, ghosts and what might have been the inspiration for the original Frankenstein. An impressive cast of actors as well.

• Supernatural is available on a two-disc DVD (AmazonUK Affiliate Link)

Werewolves, vampires and ghosts haunt the living in this much sought-after BBC horror anthology series devised by talented TV dramatist Robert Muller. Referencing a rich vein of literary gothic stories, from Shelly’s Frankenstein to Le Fanu’s Carmilla, the series presents seven unique tales (including the admired two-parter Countess Ilona and The Werewolf Reunion) across eight unsettling instalments

Each episode opens in the Club of the Damned, where prospective entrants are required to tell a story that will chill the blood of the assembled members. But much is at stake for the storyteller, as failure to induce terror in all who attend carries the price of certain death.

A timeless example of British Gothic horror at its very best Supernatural boasts a superb cast of acting talent, including Billie Whitelaw (Frenzy, The Omen), Jeremy Brett (The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes), Robert Hardy (Psychomania, Middlemarch), Gordon Jackson (The Professionals), Denholm Elliott (The Signalman, Bad Timing), Ian Hendry (Repulsion, Get Carter), Jeremy Clyde (Schalcken the Painter) and is directed by such legendary filmmakers as Peter Sasdy (Countess Dracula, The Stone Tape).

The Sandbaggers 
1978-80 

Created by Ian Mackintosh

A really cracking spy series which still bears comparison with anything made now. Sharp, fast-moving scripts and great actors show how the Secret Intelligence service works. Quite fascinating, and very far from James Bond. 

“The stories pack an awful lot into an hour, quite different from to the George Smiley productions although equally believable. Intriguingly, the writer later disappeared under mysterious circumstances…

• The Sandbaggers – The Complete Series is available on DVD (AmazonUK Affiliate Link)

• The Sandbaggers – Fan Site (Wayback Archive from 2006)

• BFI Online – The Sandbaggers guide

The Honor Blackman “The Avengers”
1963 

To those who only know the later The Avengers series, this might appear somewhat staid. This is much more realistic, John Steed and Cathy Gale being believable, if slightly unusual, characters) Steed is portrayed as been slightly untrustworthy. 

Certainly, this was a very stylish presentation for the times and there was nothing else like it on television in 1963. Essential Saturday night viewing for many. Set design was often excellent and exquisitely framed for the small screens of the period. The fight scenes are often unconvincing to say the least, it must be said. Scripts, however, are quite varied and often with unusual themes.

• The Avengers – Complete Series 2 And Surviving Episodes From Series 1 (DVD)

The complete second season (plus three surviving episodes, one incomplete, from the first season) of the cult 1960s action series starring Patrick MacNee and Honor Blackman. Episodes are: ‘Hot Snow’ (incomplete; first 15 minutes only), ‘Girl On a Trapeze’, ‘The Frighteners’, ‘Mission to Montreal’, ‘Dead On Course’, ‘The Sell Out’, ‘Death Dispatch’, ‘Propellant 23’, ‘Mr Teddy Bear’, ‘The Decapod’, ‘Bullseye’, ‘The Removal Men’, ‘The Mauritius Penny’, ‘Death of a Great Dane’, ‘Death On the Rocks’, ‘Traitor in Zebra’, ‘The Big Thinker’, ‘Intercrime’, ‘Warlock’, ‘Immortal Clay’, ‘Box of Tricks’, ‘The Golden Eggs’, ‘School for Traitors’, ‘The White Dwarf’, ‘The Man in the Mirror’, ‘Conspiracy of Silence’, ‘A Chorus of Frogs’, ‘Six Hands Across a Table’ and ‘Killer Whale’.

• The Avengers: The Complete 50th Anniversary Collection (DVD)

Public Eye 
1965-75 

“Frank Marker is a down-at-heel enquiry agent with a prison record trying to make a living in towns like Brighton and Windsor. 

“The stories are low key, almost no violence or action of any sort. Just ordinary people with sometimes unusual problems. Frank doesn’t always get it right and sometimes wrongdoers get away unpunished. He tries to help people who wilfully won’t be helped and he certainly never makes much money. 

“This may sound a little boring but somehow it isn’t, partly due to the superb acting skills of Alfred Burke. The scripts are clever, often with unexpected twists.”

• Public Eye: The Collection (DVD)

Alfred Burke stars as down-at-heel inquiry agent Frank Marker in this critically acclaimed, long-running drama series. Always working the lower end of the spectrum – divorces, missing persons, bankruptcies – Marker’s highly sympathetic character found great favour with viewers and Public Eye‘s enormous popularity endured throughout its ten-year lifespan and beyond.

In common with many series made in the 1960s and ’70s, a large number of episodes were junked; this set contains every surviving episode, together with the following special features: Interviews with Alfred Burke and Roger Marshall; a 1966 interview with Alfred Burke; Extract from missing episode It Must Be the Architecture – Can’t Be the Climate; and an Audio soundtrack from missing episode Twenty Pounds of Heart and Muscle

• Public Eye – Frank Marker Investigates

A complete guide to the series, including episode guide

The Man in Room 17
1965-67 & The Fellows (late of Room 17) 

Created by: Robin Chapman

Written by Robin Chapman, something of a hot property of the time, these are really unusual. And, it has to be said, not for everyone. Two professors observe and manipulate crime without ever leaving their secret apartments on the top floor of a Home Office building. 

On the face of it, a pair of verbose know-alls spending too much time playing the Chinese board game of ‘Go’. The stories, though, are usually clever with interesting play between the secret sanctum and the outside world. 

“A number of visual innovations were tried out for example of a first-person voice over deserted city streets or parks.”

“The Fellows is set in Cambridge and the pair become somewhat abrasive. One even sends the other a fake blackmail letter purely as an ‘experiment’. Another episode ’s whole content is a philosophical debate on crime with the pair walking round Cambridge and punting on the River Cam. 

“I find the whole thing fascinating, but others may well disagree!”

• The Man in Room 17 – The Complete Series 1 (DVD)

• The Man in Room 17 – The Complete Series 2 (DVD)

The Man is Oldenshaw: an immodest, ex-Oxford type with a mind trained to devour information like a computer. He rose to prominence during the planning of D-Day. His partner is Dimmock, a former student of the Ohio Institute of Criminology: Oldenshaw’s red-brick equal.

Room 17 is the secret centre of operations for the Department of Special Research, a unit set up to study the criminal mind and handle cases that have baffled the police and security services. Answerable only to the Prime Minister, the men in Room 17 pull the strings that make the undercover world dance, without even leaving the confines of their Whitehall office.

Starring Richard Vernon and Michael Aldridge as the celebrated super-sleuths, The Man in Room 17 featured clever plot twists, dry humour and innovative production. Created by Big Breadwinner Hog‘s Robin Chapman, this brilliantly inventive Granada series gained cult status early on and remains very much so to this day.

Inspired by the great British comics artists of the past such as Frank Hampson, Don Lawrence and Joe Colquhoun, Keith Page has worked full-time in comics and illustration for almost 30 years. Subjects have ranged from television-related material such as Thunderbirds, science fiction, and war stories of all periods for Commando.

Keith is also the creator of several The Adventures of Charlotte Corday projects, some available online as well as those previously released in print. His published works also include The Casebook of Bryant and May: The Soho Devil, written by Christopher Fowler.

• Strawjack – The Terror of Romney Marsh is available now from Crucible Comic Press, from AmazonUK, in print and as a digital edition | Paperback: ‎44 pages | ISBN-13 9798531575012 | Also available from Amazon.com

• Find out more about The Adventures of Charlotte Corday | Read the stories for free on Tapas

John Freeman

The founder of downthetubes, which he established in 1998. John works as a comics and magazine editor, writer, and on promotional work for the Lakes International Comic Art Festival. He is currently editor of Star Trek Explorer, published by Titan – his third tour of duty on the title originally titled Star Trek Magazine.

Working in British comics publishing since the 1980s, his credits include editor of titles such as Doctor Who Magazine, Babylon 5 Magazine, and more. He also edited the comics anthology STRIP Magazine and edited several audio comics for ROK Comics. He has also edited several comic collections, including volumes of “Charley’s War” and “Dan Dare”.

He’s the writer of “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.

Categories: downthetubes News, Features, Other Worlds, Reviews, Science Fiction, Television

Tags: Honor Blackman, Keith Page, Nigel Kneale’s Beasts, Out of the Unknown, Public Eye, Quatermass, Supernatural, The Avengers, The Man in Room 17, The Sandbaggers