BERGCAST

BERGCAST – Episode 11 – Quatermass and the Pit AKA Five Million Years to Earth (1967)

It's a force more powerful than 1,000 H-bombs unleashed to devastate earth!

What is? Our excitement at, for the final episode of BERGCAST Season One, not only the both of us being in the same place, but getting to meet Hammer archivist and Doctor Who Magazine editor Marcus Hearn in the headquarters of the BFI no less.

Marcus enlightened us on why it took so long to make a third Quatermass (but why they kept trying), and who else could have played our pal Bernard.

We touch on the awkward relationship that Quatermass has with the sex/colour/blood aesthetic of Hammer Horror and Babs Windsor's bra.

We hear a tale of two Roy Bakers, and muse on whether the only things violated in this movie are trade descriptions.

And we talk about the power of this film, and how the juxtaposition of the prosaic and the uncanny lend it its curious power. 

We're taking a break for a month or so now, as we get our Martians in a line for BERGCAST Season Two, where we'll be meeting a whole new set of guests, and going to the Quatermass Conclusion... and beyond.

Thanks to our lovely engineer Emma, Andrea Kinnear, Toby Hadoke and Sarah Reuben of the BFI, and also  Kier-La Janisse of the Miskatonic Institute of Horror Studies, without any of whom, as the saying goes, this would not have happened.

BERGCAST Ghost Stories, Episode 1: The Austringer (1969)

BERGCAST Season Two will begin soon enough, but until then, we're going to supply you with some dead air, as the Man in Black introduces the first of a series of ghost stories, written for your pleasure and discomfort.

The first of our tales, “The Austringer (1969)”, tells the story of a man who finds the Holy Grail of archive television, and the consequences of its discovery.

BERGCAST – Episode 12 – The Year of the Sex Olympics

In Episode 12, Jon discusses Nigle Kneale's dystopian classic The Year of the Sex Olympics with writers, film historians and curators Vic Pratt and William Fowler, writers of The Bodies Beneath and leading lights of the BFI Flipside series.

BERGCAST Ghost Stories, Episode 2 – The Magician's Wireless

There's a risk inherent in a love for obsolete technology. It can haunt us, especially if it once belonged to someone evil. 

Enjoy the second of our lockdown ghost stories, written and read by Howard and introduced by Jon in his guise as BERGCAST's own Man in Black.

BERGCAST – Episode 13 – The Lost Kneales, Part 1

In our latest lockdown special we welcome back Toby Hadoke and Andy Murray for the first of a two part look at some of Nigel Kneale's lost stories.

 

In this episode we examine Kneale's early radio plays, The Long Stairs and You Must Listen, Kneale's application to work at the BBC as well as classics like The Creature and The Road, which Toby adapted for radio in 2018.

BERGCAST – Episode 14 – The Lost Kneales, Part 2

In the concluding part of our look at the lost work of Nigel Kneale, Toby Hadoke talks about the practicalities of adapting The Road for radio, and Andy Murray examines the controversy of The Big, Big Giggle and its legacy in other Kneale works. 

We also look at why his two Wednesday Plays are less well remembered than other missing work like Out of the Unknown: The Chopper & wonder, did Nigel invent joyriding?

BERGCAST – Episode 15 – Mark Gatiss on the legacy of Nigel Kneale

Mark Gatiss referred to Nigel Kneale as “the man who invented popular television”. 

It can be a curse of a writer tagged as ‘genre’ that they may never been seen alongside the very best. As Mark said when Kneale died, “He is amongst the greats – he is absolutely as important as Dennis Potter, as David Mercer, as Alan Bleasdale, as Alan Bennett, but I think because of a strange snobbery about fantasy or sci-fi, it’s never been quite that way.”

In this episode, we chat with Mark about his love for Nigel Kneale’s work, his influence and his legacy. Mark recalls the one time he met the man himself and how he tried to get greater industry recognition for Kneale. He also talks about following in the Nigel’s footsteps by adapting Wells’s The First Men in the Moon, and the experience of making The Quatermass Experiment in 2005.

BERGCAST – Episode 16 – The Stone Tape

It's another very special episode of BERGCAST, as we're joined by our second-favourite Doctor in media, the tremendous Dr Una McCormack, with whom we're talking about the 1972 Kneale play The Stone Tape. In a discussion where we talk about the history of British manufacturing, the surprising role of Boromir, the value of fanfiction and parallels with classic Japanese horror, Una raises the very pertinent point of whether the story of a man's downfall really needs to be presented over the corpse of a woman, and we speculate as to what The Stone Tape would look like if it were feminist... and in space.

BERGCAST – Episode 17 – Beasts, Part 1

For this episode, we're joined by Andrew Screen, writer of a forthcoming book about Nigel Kneale's anthology series Beasts to talk about that, and its predecessor, Murrain, which is for obvious reasons very close to Howard's heart.

Join us for a discussion of how great a terse character description can be, the truth about the farmer's name in Murrain, and what Pauline Quirke has to do with a talking Mongoose called Gef. 

Andrew was also kind enough to send us pictures (taken by Julian Jones) of the locations from Murrain as they are now, a couple of which you can see here.

BERGCAST - Episode 18 - Beasts, Part 2

Once again, the people at BERGCAST are  delighted to welcome Andrew Screen, writer of a forthcoming guide to Beasts, Nigel Kneale's terrifying 1976 anthology series. 

What was Our Nigel’s beef with the Hammer Family? How did a toy poodle play a part in one of the most chilling scenes ever shown on broadcast telly? Was there really a time when Bernard Horsfall strangled two beloved TV scientists in a single week? Which Hellraiser movie was the one with the spaceship?

Tap the play button to find out. 

We'd like to say a big thank you to Caroline Champion, Johnny Mains and Andy Murray for their help on this one.