Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Thorough overview of a great writer, 8 Dec 2006
In these days where television drama feels it is supposed to reflect the contemporary life as it is lived, supposedly, by as many people as possible, it does us well to remember when there were days when tv executives were willing to consider dramatic works which were about people living extraordinary, often imagined lives, and that the amount of trust given over to the audience to be captivated by the characters and ideas in their television dramas would boggle the minds of the commissioning control freaks who can barely contemplate anything that doesn't hark back to the 1960s wave of social realism, isn't as `as authentic as possible', historically-derived, or stretches antiquated and impossible acts-of-faith such as Suspension of Disbelief.
You could blame the advancement of special effects, the rise of Reality television, the blurring of `high' and `low' cultures, the cynicism which has grown since the days when the written work of Nigel Kneale laid the ground for what everyone in television still wants but so few have any idea how to do, that elusive thing known as `event television.' I don't really believe in the so-called Golden Age of Television anymore. I've seen too much of what passes for the classics of the small-screen to know that it was as much about timing as it was the content of the programmes, which more than not were just as poor as the worst television offerings now or since. But after rereading Into The Unknown - The Fantastic Life of Nigel Kneale, it is obvious to me that there were times when British television took greater creative risks. Everyone took greater risks. The war was still in the experienced memory of most British adults. The space race was just beginning. Modernity and futurism were sweeping away the old orders. Television was overtaking radio as the most popular choice of entertainment, and its guardians were interested, not in reinterpreting or reworking, but in looking forward, to do things that had never been done before. Nigel Kneale wrote many of television's early forays into fantasy and science fiction, although he did not see himself as a science-fiction writer. His signature work is easily recognised but not easily definable, often with emphasis on the response of people to extraordinary and incomprehensible forces such as aliens or ghosts. The worlds he draws are often domestic or dystopian places where instincts run riot triggered by primal fears. There is paranoia and distrust of authority. Above all, the best of the original Nigel Kneale work, is experimental. For those that saw it, he will always be best known for his creation of Professor Bernard Quatermass, a rocket scientist of the British Experimental Rocket Group, who faced several forms of aliens from 1955 to his last incarnation in the late 1970s. Until Doctor Who appeared, Quatermass epitomised the fictional television scientist, attracting massive audience shares when his plays, The Quatermass Experiment and Quatermass and the Pit were broadcast, influencing a generation of artists, including Steven Spielberg, Stephen King, Russell T. Davis and Alien-creator Dan O'Bannon. (Kneale refused to write Doctor Who, objecting to its violence and the way it frightened children but the producers of Who saw no problem in stealing Kneale's Quatermass template and going on without him. His standards were very high, causing him to refuse work on several occasions.) Plays that foreshadowed the surveillance society, sexual freedoms, and the 1970s fascination with the supernatural followed, as well as a pile of unproduced work that Andy Murray has dug out of the bottom of the Kneale wardrobe, having gained the direct cooperation of the eighty-year old writer and his family in order to produce this book.
For anyone thinking of writing for television, or having written or presently doing it, I can think of no reason to not read this book. As well as gaining fascinating knowledge of some of the neglected treasures in British television history, the book does not shy away from the frustrations of working in television as a writer. Even for a man as respected as Nigel Kneale there were great upsets, plays that would get lost in the changeover from one executive to another or because his work was deemed to difficult or expensive, wasting hundreds of hours of work. Then there are the works forever lost due to the chilling practice known as `wiping.' By now it is very well known that in the early days of videotape storage the perceived high cost of the medium caused the destruction of hundreds of programmes by ignorant corporate barbarians in charge of saving a few quid. Comedy was a prime target for this practice within the BBC, as was drama. Works by Nigel Kneale to fall under the eraser head include The Year of the Sex Olympics which predicted Big Brother-like television, and although a film of it survives in black and white the original production which made colour a significant part of the design scheme was lost, as were other Kneale plays, works involving the toil of many actors, designers, directors, editors, costumiers and other creative people. While not on the scale of the destruction of the library at Alexandria, or the library of the Incas by the Spanish, it has that special brand of anonymous bureaucratic maliciousness associated with feudal empires.
Fortunately, the work he created for ITV companies was not destroyed. Beasts, for example, one of Kneale's proudest works, is now released on DVD. The Quatermass Conclusion is one of my strongest memories from television childhood, a frightening (and expensive) look at New Age-cultism, megalithic circles, and super-galactic intelligences.
Through all the disappointments Kneale kept writing exciting, forward-thinking plays and films as well as adaptation of works by Susan Hill in The Woman in Black, and Stanley and the Women, originally by Kinglsey Amis. He wrote the first draft of Halloween III directed by John Carpenter, who reworked Kneale's original idea, keeping only the folksy Irish villainy behind the evil plan to unleash hell through a wicked combination of Halloween masks and computer technology. Throughout the book Kneale gives his opinion on how the screen serviced his works, and the straight-from-the-horses-mouth approach puts you right inside the gestation process of almost everything he wrote. Gives him the last laugh too. It makes for a fascinating journey, and while I would appeal for future editions to contain an index or a quick-glance list of NK works, this book by Andy Murray does its subject great and deserved justice.
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8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The definitive Nigel Kneale, 15 Jun 2006
Like the majority of people I had only heard of Nigel Kneale due to Quatermass, the TV show whose impact on the nation when it hit the screen was stellar and whose influence on TV since is beyond question.
And if Quatermass was the only work Nigel Kneale had ever done he would be worthy of the highest praise, but as this book illustrates Quatermass was just the tip of the iceberg.
This book takes us through all of Kneale's work, I won't list it all here it's to numerous, but I particularly enjoyed the insights into his early days at the fledgling BBCTV and his partnership with Rudolph Cartier which brought 1984 to the small screen.
I recommend you buy this book, you will be amazed at the body of work Nigel Kneale has created, adapted and influenced.
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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
TV GREAT, 22 Jun 2006
It is amazing to consider this is the first full biography of Nigel Kneale and his work as a writer of prose fiction, TV and Films. Kneale is a legend amongst genre fans and yet sadly his name is not as well known as Dennis Potter and other 'straight drama' writers of the golden age of TV writing.
As well as the story of Kneale's life and career the book provides an excellent analyses of his work, emphasising Kneale's uncanny predictive ability in his drama, a true seer of science-fiction and a pioneer of ground-breaking drama in the aerly days of live broadcasts. There are excellent contributions from Kneale himself and current genre faves; Russell T Davis and Mark Gatis amongst others, it would have been interesting to read comments from more of his contemporaries, however. Kneale's name will forever be associated with his most famous and enduring creation Professor Bernard Quatermass of the British Rocket Group but it is fascinating to read about his other less well known works, particularly 'lost' stories like 'The Road' from the sixties that was tragically wiped to make use of the expensive video tape again! This script is crying out for a BBC4 remake! If you're an admirer of the Quatermass serials then this book will make you want to go back and watch the dvds again. Minor quibble: no filmography, or index
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