with a cinema sense of sensibility from europe, and rudolph cartier�*s treatment of the licence feey not... they would go, you have got to stop spending money now, and then he would come in and go, no, pay that. they were major productions, they were not cheap, and cartier spent a lot of money. were not cheap, and cartier spent a lot of money-— lot of money. people have such affinity with _ lot of money. people have such affinity with science-fiction, - lot of money. people have such affinity with science-fiction, do | affinity with science—fiction, do these still resonate today? i looked at some of the stuff and it is extraordinary.— extraordinary. yes, i think it happens _ extraordinary. yes, i think it happens all _ extraordinary. yes, i think it happens all the _ extraordinary. yes, i think it happens all the time - extraordinary. yes, i think it happens all the time to - extraordinary. yes, i think it happens all the time to lookj extraordinary. yes, i think it i happens all the time to look at sci—fi, and go, it is cold. quatermass was not cold, it entered the pubs, it had mot

written by nigel kneale and produced by rudolph cartier, the serial gripped the nation with imaginative in the debt of the quatermass serials. in a moment, i'll be speaking to quatermass historian the writer and performer toby haydoke. first let's travel back in time. 1953, the queen's coronation at westminster abbey. but there was another important visitor to the abbey that year. the quatermass experiment was a british tv first, so bold in scope and ambition that the still—stuffy bbc television service had to be catapulted into this new world of rockets and alien menaces. what did it do to them? in this first serial, an astronaut returns to earth possessed by an alien parasite and mutates into a creature that the bbc had no idea how to make. so writer nigel kneale had to come up with something himself. this is the original special effect made by my father. my mother sat with her hands in a pair of gardening gloves. you can still see the cuff there. and my dad stuck all sorts of bits of leather and tendrils and made it into a creature which they then put in a photo of the westminster ab