Bernard Quatermass - Other Media

Other Media

In addition to the character's various television and film appearances, Quatermass was also seen in a variety of other media between the 1950s and the 1990s. In 1955 Kneale was invited by the publishers of the Daily Express to write a new prose Quatermass story for serialisation in their newspaper; as he was unable to think of a new storyline, they suggested he simply adapt Quatermass II, which he agreed to. The serialisation ran in the Daily Express from 5 December 1955 to 20 December 1955, although Kneale was forced to draw it to a rapid conclusion when the paper lost interest in the project and instructed him to complete the story as soon as possible.

A script book for The Quatermass Experiment, including some photographs from the production, was released by Penguin Books in 1959. This was followed by similar releases of Quatermass II and Quatermass and the Pit, both published in 1960. 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.

Arrow Books also released a novelisation of the 1979 Quatermass serial, written by Kneale. This was written during production, and contained many additional scenes and extra background detail not included in the original scripts. Kneale offered many of these new scenes to the producers of the television version, but by this stage it was too late for them to be incorporated.

In 1995, BBC radio producer Paul Quinn approached Kneale with the idea of making a new radio series based around Quatermass, and the resulting project was produced and aired as the five-part serial The Quatermass Memoirs on BBC Radio 3 in the spring of 1996. 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. Of the actors who had previously played Quatermass, only Keir and Mills were still alive; Keir took the role, his final professional performance before his death the following year. The Quatermass Memoirs was repeated several times on digital radio station BBC7 from 2003, and the serial was released on CD in 2006.

A live theatrical production of Quatermass and the Pit was staged, with the permission of Kneale, outdoors in a quarry at the village of Cropwell Bishop in Nottinghamshire in August 1997. The adaptation was written by Peter Thornhill and mounted by Creation Productions, with David Longford starring as Quatermass.

All of the various film and surviving television productions featuring Quatermass have been released on DVD.