The Quatermass Memoirs is a British radio drama-documentary, originally broadcast in five episodes on BBC Radio 3 in March 1996. Written by Nigel Kneale, it was borne out of his Quatermass series of films and television serials, which had first been broadcast in the 1950s. Centred around the character of Professor Bernard Quatermass, it was the final piece of writing Kneale completed relating to the character.
The series mixes three different strands: a new monologue by Kneale in which he discusses the genesis and development of the Quatermass serials and their main character; archival material from the television productions, and from documentary and newsreel coverage of key events of the times in which they were made, such as the Cold War, the advent of nuclear weapons and the embryonic Space Race; and the dramatised strand, in which the Professor discloses his reasons for reclusion and discusses his demons with a persistent reporter who invades his hermitage (and ultimately becomes his friend). This third element is set several years after the events of the third serial, Quatermass and the Pit (1958–59), and shortly before those of the fourth and final serial, Quatermass (1979). Continuity is maintained with the 1979 serial by presenting Quatermass living in seclusion in the Scottish Highlands, while the final episode reveals that the social collapse foreshadowing the events of the final story has already begun.
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