BERGCAST – Episode 15 – Mark Gatiss on the legacy of Nigel Kneale

Mark Gatiss referred to Nigel Kneale as “the man who invented popular television”.  It can be a curse of a writer tagged as ‘genre’ that they may never been seen alongside the very best. As Mark said when Kneale died, “He is amongst the greats – he is absolutely as important as Dennis Potter, as David Mercer, as Alan Bleasdale, as Alan Bennett, but I think because of a strange snobbery about fantasy or sci-fi, it’s never been quite that way.” In this episode, we chat with Mark about his love for Nigel Kneale’s work, his influence and his legacy. Mark recalls the one time he met the man himself and how he tried to get greater industry recognition for Kneale. He also talks about following in the Nigel’s footsteps by adapting Wells’s The First Men in the Moon, and the experience of making The Quatermass Experiment in 2005.