There is a story, apocryphal for all I know, about a man who found himself in Hiroshima on August 6th 1945, and who survived the dropping of the first atomic bomb. He decided to get out. Miraculously, some trains were still running, so he took a train to Nagasaki.
Hold that thought.
It is the time of year in which to revisit apocalyptic visions. I rewatched Hob. Hob is the final episode in a six part series which the BBC put on in the winter of 1958-59. It was the creation of Nigel Kneale. Quatermass and the Pit. I was a child of the fifties, so I was very young when the series was shown, but I remember my reaction to seeing it very vividly. I was simultaneously enthralled, and frightened out of my wits. I would go into school the following day and say to my friend Billy Clark, “Did you see Quatermass last night?” I think we were the only two in the class who were allowed by our parents to watch it.
Some workmen excavating a site in the region of a tube station in Knightsbridge discover a strange skull in the vicinity of a buried metal object. They unearth a capsule about the size of a railway locomotive. A palaeontologist, Dr Matthew Roney, aided by his assistant Barbara Judd, enlists the help of the scientist Prof Bernard Quatermass, of the British Rocket Group, who has an uneasy relationship with his military counterpart in the group, Colonel Breen. Fantastically, the scientists hypothesise the capsule is a Martian space craft, 5,000,000 years old, populated by giant insects come to colonise planet Earth, and to abduct pre-humanoids and genetically modify them. But the government, and the military, are naturally dismissive of this absurd thesis. Breen is particularly scathing, and grows increasingly irascible with each episode. He thinks the object’s provenance is much more recent – a remnant of the war, perhaps an unexploded bomb, or a Nazi propaganda tool designed to frighten Londoners.
I remember two particularly disturbing scenes. A policeman enters a decrepit, unoccupied house in nearby Hobbs Lane. Nothing happens, but he is spooked by an uncanny atmosphere. Later, an electrician working late, and on his own in the capsule, becomes overwhelmed with terror when objects around him start flying about as if directed by malignant poltergeists. I can still recall the sight of the man’s spanner disappearing up to the far end of the capsule. He flees in blind panic. His posture and his gait are very strange, quite inhuman. That is because he has been possessed by an insect.
The populace have noticed disturbances of this nature in Hobbs Lane for centuries. In old documents, “Hobbs” is spelt “Hob’s”. A hob is a malignant elf, a hobgoblin.
There is a stand-off between the boffins on the one hand, and the military on the other, backed by a government minister. The boffins are ardent and sincere, but perhaps politically naive. They warn of a dire existential threat to humanity, but the establishment say there is nothing to worry about, and give the press, represented by the ever inquisitive journalist James Fullalove, and the public free access to the site.
So we come to part six, Hob. You will not be surprised to learn that the boffins were right. There is an apocalypse. London is on fire. Those of the populace with the remnant Martian memory turn on those without it, the other, in “the wild hunt”. Hob reigns supreme. Can the boffins find a way to avert absolute catastrophe?
Watching Hob, I remain frightened out of my wits. You could easily say that a television production of the 1950s is crude, the special effects amateurish. Yet it hardly matters. The basic premise, the script, and the cast are so strong that you readily suspend your disbelief. In fact, it’s all too believable, not so much the Sci-Fi aspects, as the underlying psychological truth. As a child I hadn’t appreciated Nigel Kneale’s preoccupation with the human psyche. Quatermass and the Pit is really an examination of the nature of evil, much like Macbeth, as interpreted by G. Wilson Knight and indeed by Roman Polansky, as an external force which can lie dormant, then reawaken and possess humanity. In Part 6, an American surveillance aircraft broadcasting to the US overflies the conflagration of London and is itself consumed. It’s really a depiction of the London Blitz. Everyone, Colonel Breen, Barbara Judd, Quatarmass himself, becomes possessed. On revisiting, the most chilling thing of all was the change in demeanour of Ms Judd. Only the Canadian scientist Roney remains immune, and retains his sanity. But at what cost?
Now why should I revisit this rickety old piece of television history, of a bygone age, depicting outdated manners and customs, with its grainy footage in black and white, and its gimcrack sets?
It occurs to me that in reality we are all currently re-enacting a Quatermass melodrama. The essential Nigel Kneale scenario is being acted out. On the one hand, the boffins are telling the government that the world is on fire, and on the other hand, the government is, despite any lip service they may pay, largely dismissive. Didn’t Mr Cameron allegedly dismiss all this “green crap”? Mr Sunak took a private jet up to Aberdeenshire last week, largely as a photo opportunity, and to issue hundreds of licences to develop new oil and gas fields. He is on the side of the motorist. Even Sir Keir wants Sadiq Khan to “reflect” on the London ULEZ initiative. Mr Sunak wants everybody to fly off on holiday. I get the impression that, on both sides of the Westminster political divide, politicians are not leading by conviction, but are rather licking a finger and sticking it in the air to see which way the wind is blowing. The aim is to win the next general election.
So who will prevail, the scientific community or the political establishment? And how far through our six part series have we travelled? I reckon we are nearing the end of Part 5. One episode to go.
Hob.
jamescalumcampbell 