" Despite this success, Kneale was unsure about whether the character would ever return, later telling an interviewer: " I didn't want to go on repeating because Professor Quatermass had already saved the world from ultimate destruction three times, and that seemed to me to be quite enough.

The couple kept the gloves as a memento, and still owned them fifty years later, when Kneale wore them again in a television documentary about his career.

Cartier was impressed with Tate's performance, and later that year offered him the lead role in The Quatermass Experiment, a science-fiction serial he was directing, written by BBC staff scriptwriter Nigel Kneale.

This successful collaboration with Cartier and Kneale resulted, four years later, in him once again being offered the role of Professor Bernard Quatermass for the pair's third serial in the series, Quatermass and the Pit, although on this occasion another actor – Alec Clunes – had already turned them down.

Kneale later recalled, “ The theme I was trying to get to was the old redressing the balance with the young, saving the young, which I thought a nice, paradoxical, ironic idea after the youth-oriented 60s ”.

Kneale, however, later denied that any of the news stories which The Quatermass Memoirs suggested had inspired parts of his work had ever been in his mind at the time.

She was later prompted by her future husband — scriptwriter Nigel Kneale — to apply for a job as a BBC television scriptwriter.

His television career began during the 1950s, when he was cast in small roles in three Nigel Kneale / Rudolph Cartier productions for BBC Television: as a drunk in The Quatermass Experiment ( 1953 ), as both an old man in a pub and later a prisoner in Nineteen Eighty-Four ( 1954 ) and as a tramp in Quatermass II ( 1955 ).

Appearing on arts programme Late Night Line Up later that night to discuss the play, Kneale said, " You can't write about the future.

It starred Windsor Davies and Donald Sinden, with Robin Kermode ( later replaced by Christopher Morris ), Julia Watson ( later replaced by Tacy Kneale ), Honor Blackman, Teddy Turner, Derek Deadman, Maria Charles and Zara Nutley.

Kneale delivered his script, initially titled Breakthrough and later renamed The Stone Tape, in September 1972.

The original line-up was Aggi ( Annabel Wright, later of The Pastels ), on vocals, David Keegan ( guitar ), Sarah Kneale ( bass ), Laura MacPhail ( drums ) and Ann Donald ( drums ).

Kneale later expressed disappointment with MacCorkindale's performance, commenting, " We had him in Beasts playing an idiot and he was very good at that ".

Kneale claimed to have picked his leading character's unusual last name at random from a London telephone directory.

Kneale was unhappy with Donlevy's interpretation of the character and also claimed the actor's performance was marred by his alcoholism, a claim repudiated by Val Guest.

The BBC's Head of Television Drama, Michael Barry, had committed most of his original script budget for the year to employing Kneale.

It was his work on Quatermass that had prompted the BBC's Head of Drama, Michael Barry, to ask Cartier to work on an adaptation of the novel, having shown his abilities with literary sources in a version of Wuthering Heights, again with Kneale handling the scripting.

The play was also inspired by a visit Kneale had paid to the BBC's research and development department, which is located in an old Victorian house in Kingswood, Surrey.

For the research facility at " Taskerlands ", Kneale was influenced by a visit he had paid to the BBC's research and development facility which is based at an old country house at Kingswood Warren in Kingswood, Surrey.

All three of these releases were reprinted by Arrow Books in 1979 with new introductions by Kneale, to tie-in with the television transmission of the fourth and final serial.

In 1979 this was re-published by Arrow Books to coincide with the transmission of the fourth and final Quatermass serial on ITV ; this edition featured a new introduction by Kneale.

The book was re-released in 1979, with a new introduction by Kneale, to coincide with the transmission of the Thames Television serial.

Nigel Kneale, responsible for the adaptation, said the production came about purely because Todd had turned up at the BBC and told them that he would like to play Heathcliff for them.

Kneale had to write the script in only a week as the broadcast was rushed into production.

In the meantime, Hammer had produced another Quatermass-style horror film, X the Unknown, originally intended as a full part of the series until Kneale denied them the rights.

Kneale, who had little involvement with the film, was unimpressed with this casting.

The serial had three strands: a monologue from Kneale recounting the background to the creation and writing of the original 1950s serials ; archive material from both the original productions and contemporary news broadcasts ; and a dramatised strand set shortly before the 1979 serial, with Quatermass being visited in retreat in Scotland by a reporter eager to write his life story.

Nigel Kneale explained in a 1990s interview the background that had led him to formulate Quatermass and the other characters of the original serial in 1953.

Carpenter had previously worked with Nigel Kneale on the 1982 film Halloween III: Season of the Witch.

Kneale, however, was irritated with this use of the character's name in the film's credits, as he feared that the impression may be given that he had something to do with the film.

Nigel Kneale had left the staff of the BBC towards the end of 1956, but on 2 May 1957 was contracted to write the new scripts on a freelance basis.

The director assigned to the project was Rudolph Cartier, with whom Kneale particularly enjoyed working ; the two men had collaborated on both of the previous Quatermass serials, as well as the literary adaptations Wuthering Heights ( 1953 ) and Nineteen Eighty-Four ( 1954 ).

Kneale was keen to write a story that would work as an allegory for the racial tensions that had recently been seen in the United Kingdom, which eventually culminated with the Notting Hill race riots of August and September 1958.

Morell had a reputation for playing authority figures, such as Colonel Green in The Bridge on the River Kwai ( 1957 ), and had previously worked with Kneale and Cartier when he appeared as O ' Brien in their BBC television adaptation of Nineteen Eighty-Four ( 1954 ).

The serial was written by BBC television drama writer Nigel Kneale, who had been an actor and an award-winning fiction writer before joining the BBC.

He and Kneale had collaborated on the play Arrow to the Heart, and worked closely on the initial storyline to make it suit the television production methods of the time.

Kneale had not finished scripting the final two episodes of the serial before the first episode was transmitted.

Kneale disliked Doctor Who — the most successful of the British science-fiction programmes — saying that it had stolen his ideas.

Dillon was played by John Stone ; Stone too had a long career as a supporting actor in a range of British television series, and in 1956 had a small role in the film X the Unknown, which Hammer Film Productions had intended as a sequel to their version of The Quatermass Experiment, until Kneale denied them the rights to use the character.

Nigel Kneale not only wrote the serial but, previously an actor, had two speaking parts.

Kneale credited the director Rudolph Cartier with bringing to the screen in Quatermass II, with its ambitious location filming, an expansive style that had not been seen in British television drama beforehand.