The Arts Desk: DVD Review: Quatermass
The earnest 1979 TV series where Nigel Kneale’s Professor Bernard Quatermass bowed out
Urban streets are littered with bodies. Barricades constructed from cars are ablaze. The national broadcaster works behind security suitable for a prison camp, Fearful old people live communally in underground warrens. Gangs roam cities while in the countryside, the hippy like Planet People chant and wander, looking for sites from where they can ascend to salvation on another, mythical planet.
Professor Bernard Quatermass arrives in this chaos from his Scottish retirement retreat to take part in a TV show marking the moment when Russian and American space projects become one, linking with each other in 
orbit above the Earth. He sees the programme as a platform to help in the quest for his missing granddaughter, who he thinks has had her head turned by the Planet People. Over its four episodes, the 1979 TV series Quatermass portrayed a world gone to pot.
This important release, a two-disc set out on Blu-ray and DVD, collects the 1979 TV series and its spin-off film. Quatermass is played by a magnificently sideburned, yet often wooden, John Mills. As Quatermass‘s foil Kapp, Simon MacCorkindale overeggs the theatricals but is nonetheless robust. Watch out for Toyah Willcox amongst the Planet People.
• Continue reading at The Arts Desk. View further info on the recent Quatermass DVD/Blu-ray Box Set here.
