The Quatermass Memoirs

The series mixes three different strands: a new monologue by Kneale in which he discusses the genesis and development of the Quatermass serials and their main character; archival material from the television productions, and from documentary and newsreel coverage of key events of the times in which they were made, such as the Cold War, the advent of nuclear weapons and the embryonic Space Race; and the dramatised strand, in which the Professor discloses his reasons for reclusion and discusses his demons with a persistent reporter who invades his hermitage (and ultimately becomes his friend). This third element is set several years after the events of the third serial, Quatermass and the Pit (1958–59), and shortly before those of the fourth and final serial, Quatermass (1979). Continuity is maintained with the 1979 serial by presenting Quatermass living in seclusion in the Scottish Highlands, while the final episode reveals that the social collapse foreshadowing the events of the final story has already begun. ==Production==

Kneale had brought Quatermass's story to a close in the 1979 serial Quatermass, and for many years saw no reason to revisit the character. However, in 1995 he was approached by BBC Radio producer Paul Quinn with an idea for creating a drama-documentary about the character as part of a season of BBC radio programming looking back at the 1950s. Quinn told Dreamwatch magazine: "For many people who remember the seminal experience of hiding behind the sofa when the Quatermass serials came on the television, Quatermass was the 1950s. His adventures [...] have gone down in popular cultural history". Kneale was intrigued by the idea, and agreed to write new dramatic material of Quatermass relating his memories which Quinn could then combine with archive clips from the existing episodes of the various Quatermass television serials. Kneale saw the older Quatermass of this new serial as "the same very concerned scientist who is now, in retrospect, horribly worried about what he may have done to the world through his encounters with various lifeforms that were better not contacted". It was Kneale's first radio work since he had written the play You Must Listen for the BBC in 1952, and his first work for the BBC in any medium since the mid-1970s. The programme was commissioned in July 1995, with the original working title of Quatermass and the Ultimate Conspiracy. When Quinn discovered that some of the soundtracks of the Quatermass episodes were considered to be of too poor a quality to use, the idea for the series was re-shaped to add the new elements of Kneale's monologue and archive news reports. The serial was promoted in listings magazine Radio Times with an article by Kneale about Quatermass and his opinion of other science fiction programmes. In 2006 it was released on CD by BBC Audio as part of their Classic Radio Sci-Fi range, with cover artwork by Chris Achilleos. ==Reception==

Nigel Kneale himself was largely dismissive of the serial in the years following its broadcast: "God knows it wasn't a very important sort of thing. The BBC didn't care tuppence about what they were doing, because they really don't know what they're doing, certainly not in radio... [Andrew Keir] must have been pretty ill when this nonsense was going on". The Independents radio critic Robert Hanks was unimpressed with Kneale's script for the dramatic sections, but praised the performance of Andrew Keir in the title role: "Lesser actors would treat Kneale's downbeat script with a certain detachment, but Keir is prepared to charge even the most banal lines with a terror that's both a treat and a lesson". Hanks also felt that The Fifties season as a whole, as demonstrated by The Quatermass Memoirs, had a somewhat misleading focus: "You get the sense that a vogue for science fiction is being interpreted as the spirit of the Fifties, with emphasis being put on a handful of sci-fi films. If you really wanted to read the age through its movies, you'd have to include Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis, late Ealing and early Norman Wisdom, Marilyn Monroe and Elvis Presley. It's a lot to accommodate; perhaps sticking to terror is just less intimidating". ==References==