An Outside Broadcast at the End of the World: Free online talk about the work of Nigel Kneale

 On Saturday, 9th August, 2025 Bronte Schiltz will be exploring the work of Nigel Kneale in a free online talk entitled An Outside Broadcast at the End of the World. 

The event is part of Romancing the Gothic, an independent online education project run by Dr. Sam Hirst. Whilst free attendees will need to book a ticket. This can be done at
https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/an-outside-broadcast-at-the-end-of-the-world-introduction-to-nigel-kneale-tickets

Nigel Kneale and Horror: Medium, Time, Culture and Genre edited by Derek Johnston

 

A new academic study of Kneale's work has been published by Liverpool University Press. The book is edited by Derek Johnston, lecturer in media at Queen’s University Belfast, and is the author of Haunted Seasons: Television Ghost Stories for Christmas and Horror for Halloween.

This collection focuses on Kneale’s horror writing, particularly in film and television. Taking a number of different academic perspectives, the chapters approach questions of medium, adaptation, genre, and style, emphasising the role that time plays in Kneale’s horror, and how he connected to wider cultural concerns. The work covered includes more famous productions, such as the Quatermass serials, The Woman in Black and Nineteen Eighty-Four, as well as some that have received less attention, including the social horror of Kneale’s film adaptations of Look Back in Anger and The Entertainer, ‘lost’ productions such as ‘The Chopper’ and Bam! Pow! Zap!, and unproduced work such as The Big, Big Giggle. Drawing on archival sources, including Kneale’s own archives, alongside the productions themselves, the collection portrays Kneale as a writer deeply concerned with society and social change, with the potential and responsibility of the media, and not as a horror writer, but a writer deeply concerned with the horrific.

At the moment the book is only available in a budget bursting hardback edition, but will hopefully come out in paperback at some point.

For more details and a look at the contents head over to https://liverpooluniversitypress.co.uk/doi/book/10.3828/9781836243519

The Quatermass Experiment: The Making of TV's First Sci-Fi Classic by Toby Hadoke

You can now order Toby Hadoke's book on the making of The Quatermass Experiment TV series which will be published on 12th May, 2025.

For the first time, the full inside story of the development and making of this classic programme can be told — pieced together from production paperwork, Nigel Kneale’s private archive and never-before-published interviews with cast and crew, illustrated with previously unseen photographs from the Nigel Kneale Estate. With a foreword by Peter Harness and afterword by Jon Dear. 

Toby Hadoke has been researching Quatermass and the works of Nigel Kneale for over 30 years. He is also an award-winning writer, actor, comedian and broadcaster, regularly contributing to The Guardian and Radio 4 Extra.

Toby explained on Instagram "It was originally going to be one book, but I’ve amassed (Quatamassed?) so much that each serial is getting its own volume (and there’ll be editions on the films and everything else too).

I started writing to the cast and crew of Quatermass in 1989. So many of them – all now dead alas – wrote back with memories and materials and I have collated so much over the years."

Trade Paperback: 156mm x 244 format; 320 pages in black and white, plus 36-page photo insert.

The book can be pre-ordered from https://tenacrefilms.bigcartel.com/product/the-quatermass-experiment-the-making-of-tv-s-first-sci-fi-classic

The website also contains details and links to book launches and signings taking place in Manchester and London during May.