The Stone Tape
Encyclopedia
The Stone Tape is a television play directed by Peter Sasdy
and starring Michael Bryant
, Jane Asher
, Michael Bates
and Iain Cuthbertson
. It was broadcast on BBC Two
as a Christmas ghost story
in 1972. Combining aspects of science fiction
and horror
, the story concerns a team of scientists who move into their new research facility, a renovated Victorian
mansion that has a reputation for being haunted
. Investigating, they learn that the haunting is a recording of a past event stored by the stone in one of the rooms of the house – the "stone tape" of the play's title. Believing that this may be the key to the development of a new recording medium, they throw all their expertise and high-tech equipment into learning how the stone tape preserves its recording. However, their investigations serve only to unleash a darker, more malevolent force.
The Stone Tape was written by Nigel Kneale
, best known as the writer of Quatermass
. Its juxtaposition of science and superstition is a frequent theme in Kneale's work; in particular, his 1952 radio play You Must Listen, about a haunted telephone line, is a notable antecedent of The Stone Tape. The play was also inspired by a visit Kneale had paid to the BBC's research and development department, which is located in an old Victorian house in Kingswood, Surrey. Critically acclaimed at time of broadcast, it remains well regarded to this day as one of Nigel Kneale's best and most terrifying plays. Since its broadcast, the hypothesis of residual haunting
– that ghosts are recordings of past events made by the natural environment – has come to be known as the "Stone Tape
Theory".
) is the head of a research team in an electronics
company, Ryan Electrics, working on developing a new recording medium in the hope of giving the company an edge over its Japanese competitors. The research team are moving into a new facility at "Taskerlands", an old Victorian mansion that has been renovated to act as their research facility. On arrival, they learn from foreman Roy Collinson (Iain Cuthbertson
) that the refurbishment of one of the rooms in "Taskerlands" remains uncompleted, the builders having refused to work in it on the grounds that it is haunted. Curious, the researchers explore the room and hear the sounds of a woman running followed by a gut-wrenching scream. One of their number, computer programmer Jill Greeley (Jane Asher
), sees an image of a woman running up the steps in the room and falling, apparently to her death. Inquiring with the local villagers, they learn that a young maid died in that room during Victorian
times. Brock realises that somehow the stone in the room has preserved an image of the girl's death – this "stone tape" may be the key to the new recording medium that he and his team have been charged with developing. Brock and his team move into the room with their equipment hoping to be able to find the secret of how the stone tape works but, becoming more and more desperate under mounting pressure to deliver results, they succeed only in wiping the image. Brock's defeat is compounded when he is informed by his superiors that they have lost confidence in his work and that the "Taskerlands" facility is to be handed over to a rival research team working on a new washing machine
. While cleaning up, Jill realises that the recording in the room was masking a much older recording, left many thousands of years ago. Returning to the room, she is confronted by a powerful, malevolent presence and, like the maid before her, falls to her death trying to escape. Following the inquest
, Brock destroys all of Jill's records and makes a final visit to the room where he discovers, to his horror, that the stone tape has made a new recording – that of Jill screaming his name as she dies.
television playwright who had first come to prominence in the nineteen-fifties thanks to his three Quatermass serials and his controversial adaptation of George Orwell
's Nineteen Eighty-Four
, all of which were produced by the BBC
. Going freelance in the nineteen-sixties, Kneale had produced scripts for Associated Television
and for Hammer Films. In the late nineteen-sixties and early nineteen-seventies, Kneale had been coaxed back to the BBC, writing such plays as The Year of the Sex Olympics
, Wine of India and, for the anthology series Out of the Unknown
, The Chopper.
In the middle of 1972, Christopher Morahan, who was Head of Drama at BBC2 and who had directed Kneale's 1963 play The Road and the 1965 remake of Kneale's adaptation of Nineteen Eighty-Four
, approached Kneale asking him to write a play to be broadcast over the Christmas period. Accepting the commission, Kneale quickly decided that, in keeping with Christmas tradition, he would write a ghost story, but with a difference – ancient spirits would come into collision with modern science. The concept of mixing the supernatural with high technology had long been a feature of Kneale's work – most notably, his 1952 radio play You Must Listen, which concerned a telecommunications engineer who discovers that a telephone line has somehow preserved the final conversation between a woman and her lover before her suicide, was an important antecedent of The Stone Tape. The science and supernatural theme is also present in Kneale's Quatermass and the Pit
which, in addition, shares similar elements with The Stone Tape such as an abandoned house with a reputation for hauntings; the collection of documentary evidence of the haunting (also a trademark of M. R. James
, a writer much admired by Kneale) and the sensitivity of certain characters to the supernatural. In addition, the relationship between the scientists and the local villagers echoes that seen in Quatermass II
.
For the research facility at "Taskerlands", Kneale was influenced by a visit he had paid to the BBC's research and development facility which is based at an old country house at Kingswood Warren in Kingswood, Surrey. Similarly, the researchers working at Kingswood Warren influenced the portrayal of the members of the Ryan research team in The Stone Tape. Kneale recalled of his visit to Kingswood Warren, "The sort of impression you got of the folk who worked there was a boyishness. They were very cheerful. It was all rather fun for them, which is a very clever way to go about doing that sort of heavy research. [...] They were nice chaps – and so we got some very nice chaps for the TV version".
Kneale delivered his script, initially titled Breakthrough and later renamed The Stone Tape, in September 1972. Because of its subject matter, it was felt that the play would be best handled as an instalment of Dead of Night, a supernatural anthology
series produced by Innes Lloyd
. In the end, The Stone Tape was made and broadcast as a standalone programme but production was handled by the Dead of Night team under Lloyd. Selected as director was Hungarian
Peter Sasdy
whose credits included adaptations of The Caves of Steel
and Wuthering Heights
for the BBC and Taste the Blood of Dracula
and Hands of the Ripper
for Hammer. Cast as Peter Brock was Michael Bryant, who had starred in the BBC's 1970 adaptation of Jean-Paul Sartre
's Roads to Freedom and had a reputation for playing "bad boy" roles. Jane Asher, playing Jill Greely, had, as a child, appeared in Hammer's The Quatermass Xperiment
, the film adaptation of Kneale's BBC serial The Quatermass Experiment
. Iain Cuthberston, playing Roy Collinson, was well known for his role in Budgie
and would go to become the star of Sutherland's Law
while Michael Bates
, cast as Eddie Holmes, would later become known for his roles in the sitcoms Last of the Summer Wine
and It Ain't Half Hot Mum
.
Recording of The Stone Tape began on 15 November 1972 with the exterior scenes of the house, "Taskerlands". These were shot at Horsley Towers, East Horsley in Surrey. This was once owned by Ada Lovelace
, daughter of Lord Byron
and sponsor of computer
pioneer Charles Babbage
. Production then moved to BBC Television Centre
between 20 November 1972 and 22 November 1972. Not all scenes were recorded in time and a remount was required on 4 December 1972. Michael Bates was not available on this day and his lines had to be redistributed among the other cast members. Incidental music and sound effects were provided by Desmond Briscoe
of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop
and these proved significant in setting the mood of the play – sections were later used in a BBC educational programme on the effectiveness of incidental music.
The Stone Tape aired on 25 December 1972 on BBC2 to an audience of 2.6 million. The Evening Standard
praised the play, describing it as "one of the best plays of the genre ever written. Its virtues aren't just the main spine of the story, but the way the characters shift, as in real life, the bitter comic conflict between pure and impure science". Viewers were similarly impressed: a panel questioned for an audience report praised The Stone Tape as "thoroughly entertaining" and "both gripping and spine-chilling".
The Stone Tape was one of the last plays Nigel Kneale wrote for the BBC. He had become increasingly disenchanted with the organisation, mainly as a result of the rejection of several scripts such as Cracks, a proposed Play for Today
, and a fourth Quatermass serial. Moving to Independent Television
, he wrote and created series such as Beasts
and Kinvig and succeeded in getting his rejected Quatermass
scripts produced in 1979. He died in 2006.
The script of The Stone Tape was published, along with the scripts of The Road and The Year of the Sex Olympics in 1976 by Ferret Fantasy under the title The Year of the Sex Olympics and Other TV Plays. A DVD
was released by the British Film Institute
in 2001 with a commentary by Nigel Kneale and critic Kim Newman
, sleeve notes by Kim Newman and the script of the play as well as the script of The Road. Unfortunately, this is now out of print and extremely difficult to find.
, that ghosts may be recordings of past events made by the physical environment, was Thomas Charles Lethbridge
in books such as Ghost and Ghoul, written in 1961. Since the broadcast of the play, this hypothesis has come to be known as the "Stone Tape Theory" by parapsychological
researchers.
The Stone Tape was a significant influence on John Carpenter
's 1987 film Prince of Darkness in which a group of scientists investigate a mysterious cylinder discovered in the basement of a church. Besides directing the film, Carpenter wrote the screenplay under the pseudonym
"Martin Quatermass", and included a reference to "Kneale University". This homage did little to impress Kneale, who wrote in The Observer
, "For the record I have had nothing to do with the film and I have not seen it. It sounds pretty bad. With an homage like this, one might say, who needs insults? I can only imagine that it is a whimsical riposte for my having my name removed from a film I wrote a few years ago [a reference to Halloween III
for which Kneale wrote an early draft] and which Mr Carpenter carpentered into sawdust". The play also influenced the 1982 Steven Spielberg
and Tobe Hooper
film Poltergeist. In the 2004 BBC7 Radio Serial "Ghost Zone", a character refers explicitly to the 'Stone Tape theory' as an explanation for the way an invading alien intelligence is 'replaying' scenes and figures from the past of the remote Scottish village in which the story is set. Author Marty Ross has explicitly acknowledged the influence of Kneale's work, and the Quatermass serials in particular, on his own BBC SF drama. The serial can be accessed at http://za-serials.livejournal.com
The Stone Tape remains well-regarded to this day. Roger Fulton, writing in The Encyclopedia of TV Science Fiction, calls it "arguably the most creepy drama ever seen on television". The writer and critic Kim Newman regards it as "one of the masterpieces of genre television, an authentic alliance of mind-stretching science fiction concepts with horror and suspense plot mechanics". Writer and member of The League of Gentlemen
, Jeremy Dyson
feels that The Stone Tape "strikes a note that it just circumnavigates your intellect and gets you on a much deeper level [...] it just has this impact on you, rather like being in the room itself. Extraordinary piece of work". Writer Grant Morrison
recalled The Stone Tape as "really creepy and very memorable. Just brilliant images. That scared the hell out of me!". Sergio Angelini, writing for the British Film Institute's Screenonline
, has said that "The Stone Tape stands as perhaps his finest single work in the genre". Lez Cooke, in his book British Television Drama: A History, has praised the play as "one of the most imaginative and intelligent examples of the horror genre to appear on British television, a single play to rank alongside the best of Play for Today".
Peter Sasdy
Peter Sasdy is a British film and TV director.As well as numerous TV credits, notably the Nigel Kneale-scripted The Stone Tape , he directed several horror films for Hammer, including Taste the Blood of Dracula , Countess Dracula and Hands of the Ripper...
and starring Michael Bryant
Michael Bryant (actor)
Michael Dennis Bryant was a British stage and television actor.-Biography:Bryant attended Battersea Grammar School and after service in the Merchant Navy and Army, he attended drama school and appeared in many productions on the London stage. He made his film debut in 1955...
, Jane Asher
Jane Asher
Jane Asher is an English actress. She has also developed a second career as a cake decorator and cake shop proprietor.-Early life:...
, Michael Bates
Michael Bates (actor)
Michael Bates was a British actor born in Jhansi, United Provinces, India.-Biography:Bates served as a Major serving with the Brigade of Gurkhas in Burma before his discharge at the end of World War II...
and Iain Cuthbertson
Iain Cuthbertson
Iain Cuthbertson was a Scottish character actor. At 6' 4", he was known for his tall imposing build and also his distinctive "gravelly" heavily accented voice.-Early life:...
. It was broadcast on BBC Two
BBC Two
BBC Two is the second television channel operated by the British Broadcasting Corporation in the United Kingdom. It covers a wide range of subject matter, but tending towards more 'highbrow' programmes than the more mainstream and popular BBC One. Like the BBC's other domestic TV and radio...
as a Christmas ghost story
Ghost story
A ghost story may be any piece of fiction, or drama, or an account of an experience, that includes a ghost, or simply takes as a premise the possibility of ghosts or characters' belief in them. Colloquially, the term can refer to any kind of scary story. In a narrower sense, the ghost story has...
in 1972. Combining aspects of science fiction
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
and horror
Horror fiction
Horror fiction also Horror fantasy is a philosophy of literature, which is intended to, or has the capacity to frighten its readers, inducing feelings of horror and terror. It creates an eerie atmosphere. Horror can be either supernatural or non-supernatural...
, the story concerns a team of scientists who move into their new research facility, a renovated Victorian
Victorian era
The Victorian era of British history was the period of Queen Victoria's reign from 20 June 1837 until her death on 22 January 1901. It was a long period of peace, prosperity, refined sensibilities and national self-confidence...
mansion that has a reputation for being haunted
Haunted house
A haunted house is a house or other building often perceived as being inhabited by disembodied spirits of the deceased who may have been former residents or were familiar with the property...
. Investigating, they learn that the haunting is a recording of a past event stored by the stone in one of the rooms of the house – the "stone tape" of the play's title. Believing that this may be the key to the development of a new recording medium, they throw all their expertise and high-tech equipment into learning how the stone tape preserves its recording. However, their investigations serve only to unleash a darker, more malevolent force.
The Stone Tape was written by Nigel Kneale
Nigel Kneale
Nigel Kneale was a British screenwriter from the Isle of Man. Active in television, film, radio drama and prose fiction, he wrote professionally for over fifty years, was a winner of the Somerset Maugham Award and was twice nominated for the British Film Award for Best Screenplay...
, best known as the writer of Quatermass
Quatermass
Quatermass may best be known as the surname of the title character of a British science fiction franchise of several television serials and films, and a radio production...
. Its juxtaposition of science and superstition is a frequent theme in Kneale's work; in particular, his 1952 radio play You Must Listen, about a haunted telephone line, is a notable antecedent of The Stone Tape. The play was also inspired by a visit Kneale had paid to the BBC's research and development department, which is located in an old Victorian house in Kingswood, Surrey. Critically acclaimed at time of broadcast, it remains well regarded to this day as one of Nigel Kneale's best and most terrifying plays. Since its broadcast, the hypothesis of residual haunting
Residual haunting
In the terminology of ghost hunting, residual hauntings, also known as restligeists , are repeated playbacks of auditory, visual, olfactory, and other sensory phenomena that are attributed to a traumatic event, life-altering event, or a routine event of a person or place, like an echo or a replay...
– that ghosts are recordings of past events made by the natural environment – has come to be known as the "Stone Tape
Stone Tape
The Stone Tape theory is a paranormal hypothesis that was proposed in the 1970s as a possible explanation for ghosts. It speculates that inanimate materials can absorb some form of energy from living beings; the hypothesis speculates that this "recording" happens especially during moments of high...
Theory".
Plot summary
Peter Brock (Michael BryantMichael Bryant (actor)
Michael Dennis Bryant was a British stage and television actor.-Biography:Bryant attended Battersea Grammar School and after service in the Merchant Navy and Army, he attended drama school and appeared in many productions on the London stage. He made his film debut in 1955...
) is the head of a research team in an electronics
Electronics
Electronics is the branch of science, engineering and technology that deals with electrical circuits involving active electrical components such as vacuum tubes, transistors, diodes and integrated circuits, and associated passive interconnection technologies...
company, Ryan Electrics, working on developing a new recording medium in the hope of giving the company an edge over its Japanese competitors. The research team are moving into a new facility at "Taskerlands", an old Victorian mansion that has been renovated to act as their research facility. On arrival, they learn from foreman Roy Collinson (Iain Cuthbertson
Iain Cuthbertson
Iain Cuthbertson was a Scottish character actor. At 6' 4", he was known for his tall imposing build and also his distinctive "gravelly" heavily accented voice.-Early life:...
) that the refurbishment of one of the rooms in "Taskerlands" remains uncompleted, the builders having refused to work in it on the grounds that it is haunted. Curious, the researchers explore the room and hear the sounds of a woman running followed by a gut-wrenching scream. One of their number, computer programmer Jill Greeley (Jane Asher
Jane Asher
Jane Asher is an English actress. She has also developed a second career as a cake decorator and cake shop proprietor.-Early life:...
), sees an image of a woman running up the steps in the room and falling, apparently to her death. Inquiring with the local villagers, they learn that a young maid died in that room during Victorian
Victorian era
The Victorian era of British history was the period of Queen Victoria's reign from 20 June 1837 until her death on 22 January 1901. It was a long period of peace, prosperity, refined sensibilities and national self-confidence...
times. Brock realises that somehow the stone in the room has preserved an image of the girl's death – this "stone tape" may be the key to the new recording medium that he and his team have been charged with developing. Brock and his team move into the room with their equipment hoping to be able to find the secret of how the stone tape works but, becoming more and more desperate under mounting pressure to deliver results, they succeed only in wiping the image. Brock's defeat is compounded when he is informed by his superiors that they have lost confidence in his work and that the "Taskerlands" facility is to be handed over to a rival research team working on a new washing machine
Washing machine
A washing machine is a machine designed to wash laundry, such as clothing, towels and sheets...
. While cleaning up, Jill realises that the recording in the room was masking a much older recording, left many thousands of years ago. Returning to the room, she is confronted by a powerful, malevolent presence and, like the maid before her, falls to her death trying to escape. Following the inquest
Inquest
Inquests in England and Wales are held into sudden and unexplained deaths and also into the circumstances of discovery of a certain class of valuable artefacts known as "treasure trove"...
, Brock destroys all of Jill's records and makes a final visit to the room where he discovers, to his horror, that the stone tape has made a new recording – that of Jill screaming his name as she dies.
Background
Nigel Kneale was a ManxIsle of Man
The Isle of Man , otherwise known simply as Mann , is a self-governing British Crown Dependency, located in the Irish Sea between the islands of Great Britain and Ireland, within the British Isles. The head of state is Queen Elizabeth II, who holds the title of Lord of Mann. The Lord of Mann is...
television playwright who had first come to prominence in the nineteen-fifties thanks to his three Quatermass serials and his controversial adaptation of George Orwell
George Orwell
Eric Arthur Blair , better known by his pen name George Orwell, was an English author and journalist...
's Nineteen Eighty-Four
Nineteen Eighty-Four
Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell is a dystopian novel about Oceania, a society ruled by the oligarchical dictatorship of the Party...
, all of which were produced by the BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
. Going freelance in the nineteen-sixties, Kneale had produced scripts for Associated Television
Associated TeleVision
Associated Television, often referred to as ATV, was a British television company, holder of various licences to broadcast on the ITV network from 24 September 1955 until 00:34 on 1 January 1982...
and for Hammer Films. In the late nineteen-sixties and early nineteen-seventies, Kneale had been coaxed back to the BBC, writing such plays as The Year of the Sex Olympics
The Year of the Sex Olympics
The Year of the Sex Olympics is a 1968 television play made by the BBC and first broadcast on BBC2 as part of Theatre 625. It stars Leonard Rossiter, Tony Vogel, Suzanne Neve and Brian Cox. It was directed by Michael Elliot...
, Wine of India and, for the anthology series Out of the Unknown
Out of the Unknown
Out of the Unknown is a British television science fiction anthology drama series, produced by the BBC and broadcast on BBC2 in four series between 1965 and 1971. Each episode was an independent dramatisation of a separate science fiction short story...
, The Chopper.
In the middle of 1972, Christopher Morahan, who was Head of Drama at BBC2 and who had directed Kneale's 1963 play The Road and the 1965 remake of Kneale's adaptation of Nineteen Eighty-Four
Nineteen Eighty-Four (TV programme)
Nineteen Eighty-Four is a British television adaptation of the novel of the same name by George Orwell, originally broadcast on BBC Television in December 1954. The production proved to be hugely controversial, with questions asked in Parliament and many viewer complaints over its supposed...
, approached Kneale asking him to write a play to be broadcast over the Christmas period. Accepting the commission, Kneale quickly decided that, in keeping with Christmas tradition, he would write a ghost story, but with a difference – ancient spirits would come into collision with modern science. The concept of mixing the supernatural with high technology had long been a feature of Kneale's work – most notably, his 1952 radio play You Must Listen, which concerned a telecommunications engineer who discovers that a telephone line has somehow preserved the final conversation between a woman and her lover before her suicide, was an important antecedent of The Stone Tape. The science and supernatural theme is also present in Kneale's Quatermass and the Pit
Quatermass and the Pit
Quatermass and the Pit is a British television science-fiction serial, originally transmitted live by BBC Television in December 1958 and January 1959. It was the third and last of the BBC's Quatermass serials, although the character would reappear in a 1979 ITV production simply entitled Quatermass...
which, in addition, shares similar elements with The Stone Tape such as an abandoned house with a reputation for hauntings; the collection of documentary evidence of the haunting (also a trademark of M. R. James
M. R. James
Montague Rhodes James, OM, MA, , who used the publication name M. R. James, was an English mediaeval scholar and provost of King's College, Cambridge and of Eton College . He is best remembered for his ghost stories, which are regarded as among the best in the genre...
, a writer much admired by Kneale) and the sensitivity of certain characters to the supernatural. In addition, the relationship between the scientists and the local villagers echoes that seen in Quatermass II
Quatermass II
Quatermass II is a British science-fiction serial, originally broadcast by BBC Television in the autumn of 1955. It is the second in the Quatermass series by writer Nigel Kneale, and the first of those serials to survive in its entirety in the BBC archives...
.
For the research facility at "Taskerlands", Kneale was influenced by a visit he had paid to the BBC's research and development facility which is based at an old country house at Kingswood Warren in Kingswood, Surrey. Similarly, the researchers working at Kingswood Warren influenced the portrayal of the members of the Ryan research team in The Stone Tape. Kneale recalled of his visit to Kingswood Warren, "The sort of impression you got of the folk who worked there was a boyishness. They were very cheerful. It was all rather fun for them, which is a very clever way to go about doing that sort of heavy research. [...] They were nice chaps – and so we got some very nice chaps for the TV version".
Kneale delivered his script, initially titled Breakthrough and later renamed The Stone Tape, in September 1972. Because of its subject matter, it was felt that the play would be best handled as an instalment of Dead of Night, a supernatural anthology
Anthology
An anthology is a collection of literary works chosen by the compiler. It may be a collection of poems, short stories, plays, songs, or excerpts...
series produced by Innes Lloyd
Innes Lloyd
Innes Lloyd was a British television producer of BBC drama producers.-Doctor Who:...
. In the end, The Stone Tape was made and broadcast as a standalone programme but production was handled by the Dead of Night team under Lloyd. Selected as director was Hungarian
Hungary
Hungary , officially the Republic of Hungary , is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is situated in the Carpathian Basin and is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine and Romania to the east, Serbia and Croatia to the south, Slovenia to the southwest and Austria to the west. The...
Peter Sasdy
Peter Sasdy
Peter Sasdy is a British film and TV director.As well as numerous TV credits, notably the Nigel Kneale-scripted The Stone Tape , he directed several horror films for Hammer, including Taste the Blood of Dracula , Countess Dracula and Hands of the Ripper...
whose credits included adaptations of The Caves of Steel
The Caves of Steel
The Caves of Steel is a novel by Isaac Asimov. It is essentially a detective story, and illustrates an idea Asimov advocated, that science fiction is a flavor that can be applied to any literary genre, rather than a limited genre itself. Specifically, in the book Asimov's Mysteries, he states that...
and Wuthering Heights
Wuthering Heights
Wuthering Heights is a novel by Emily Brontë published in 1847. It was her only novel and written between December 1845 and July 1846. It remained unpublished until July 1847 and was not printed until December after the success of her sister Charlotte Brontë's novel Jane Eyre...
for the BBC and Taste the Blood of Dracula
Taste the Blood of Dracula
Taste the Blood of Dracula is a British horror film produced by Hammer Film Productions and released in 1970. It stars Christopher Lee as Count Dracula, and was directed by Peter Sasdy...
and Hands of the Ripper
Hands of the Ripper
Hands of the Ripper is a 1971 British horror film directed by Peter Sasdy for Hammer Film Productions.-Plot:It is set in London in Edwardian times, and stars Angharad Rees as Anna, a vulnerable young woman who is exploited by her guardian , a medium, and haunted by the subconscious memory of her...
for Hammer. Cast as Peter Brock was Michael Bryant, who had starred in the BBC's 1970 adaptation of Jean-Paul Sartre
Jean-Paul Sartre
Jean-Paul Charles Aymard Sartre was a French existentialist philosopher, playwright, novelist, screenwriter, political activist, biographer, and literary critic. He was one of the leading figures in 20th century French philosophy, particularly Marxism, and was one of the key figures in literary...
's Roads to Freedom and had a reputation for playing "bad boy" roles. Jane Asher, playing Jill Greely, had, as a child, appeared in Hammer's The Quatermass Xperiment
The Quatermass Xperiment
The Quatermass Xperiment is a 1955 British science fiction horror film. Made by Hammer Film Productions, it was based on the 1953 BBC Television serial The Quatermass Experiment written by Nigel Kneale. It was directed by Val Guest and stars Brian Donlevy as the eponymous Professor Bernard...
, the film adaptation of Kneale's BBC serial The Quatermass Experiment
The Quatermass Experiment
The Quatermass Experiment is a British science-fiction serial broadcast by BBC Television in the summer of 1953 and re-staged by BBC Four in 2005. Set in the near future against the background of a British space programme, it tells the story of the first manned flight into space, overseen by...
. Iain Cuthberston, playing Roy Collinson, was well known for his role in Budgie
Budgie (TV series)
Budgie was a popular British television series starring former popstar Adam Faith which was produced by ITV company London Weekend Television and broadcast on the ITV network between 1971 and 1972....
and would go to become the star of Sutherland's Law
Sutherland's Law
Sutherland's Law is a television series made by BBC Scotland between 1973 and 1976.The series had originated as a stand alone edition of the portmanteau programme Drama Playhouse in 1972 in which Derek Francis played Sutherland and was then commissioned as an ongoing series.Sutherland's Law dealt...
while Michael Bates
Michael Bates (actor)
Michael Bates was a British actor born in Jhansi, United Provinces, India.-Biography:Bates served as a Major serving with the Brigade of Gurkhas in Burma before his discharge at the end of World War II...
, cast as Eddie Holmes, would later become known for his roles in the sitcoms Last of the Summer Wine
Last of the Summer Wine
Last of the Summer Wine is a British sitcom written by Roy Clarke that was broadcast on BBC One. Last of the Summer Wine premiered as an episode of Comedy Playhouse on 4 January 1973 and the first series of episodes followed on 12 November 1973. From 1983 to 2010, Alan J. W. Bell produced and...
and It Ain't Half Hot Mum
It Ain't Half Hot Mum
It Ain't Half Hot Mum was a British sitcom about the adventures of a Royal Artillery Concert Party, broadcast on the BBC between 1974 and 1981, and written by Jimmy Perry and David Croft, the creators of Dad's Army...
.
Recording of The Stone Tape began on 15 November 1972 with the exterior scenes of the house, "Taskerlands". These were shot at Horsley Towers, East Horsley in Surrey. This was once owned by Ada Lovelace
Ada Lovelace
Augusta Ada King, Countess of Lovelace , born Augusta Ada Byron, was an English writer chiefly known for her work on Charles Babbage's early mechanical general-purpose computer, the analytical engine...
, daughter of Lord Byron
George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron
George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron, later George Gordon Noel, 6th Baron Byron, FRS , commonly known simply as Lord Byron, was a British poet and a leading figure in the Romantic movement...
and sponsor of computer
Computer
A computer is a programmable machine designed to sequentially and automatically carry out a sequence of arithmetic or logical operations. The particular sequence of operations can be changed readily, allowing the computer to solve more than one kind of problem...
pioneer Charles Babbage
Charles Babbage
Charles Babbage, FRS was an English mathematician, philosopher, inventor and mechanical engineer who originated the concept of a programmable computer...
. Production then moved to BBC Television Centre
BBC Television Centre
BBC Television Centre at White City in West London is the headquarters of BBC Television. Officially opened on 29 June 1960, it remains one of the largest to this day; having featured over the years as backdrop to many BBC programmes, it is one of the most readily recognisable such facilities...
between 20 November 1972 and 22 November 1972. Not all scenes were recorded in time and a remount was required on 4 December 1972. Michael Bates was not available on this day and his lines had to be redistributed among the other cast members. Incidental music and sound effects were provided by Desmond Briscoe
Desmond Briscoe
Harry Desmond Briscoe was an English composer, sound engineer and studio manager. He was the co-founder and original manager of the pioneering BBC Radiophonic Workshop....
of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop
BBC Radiophonic Workshop
The BBC Radiophonic Workshop, one of the sound effects units of the BBC, was created in 1958 to produce effects and new music for radio, and was closed in March 1998, although much of its traditional work had already been outsourced by 1995. It was based in the BBC's Maida Vale Studios in Delaware...
and these proved significant in setting the mood of the play – sections were later used in a BBC educational programme on the effectiveness of incidental music.
The Stone Tape aired on 25 December 1972 on BBC2 to an audience of 2.6 million. The Evening Standard
Evening Standard
The Evening Standard, now styled the London Evening Standard, is a free local daily newspaper, published Monday–Friday in tabloid format in London. It is the dominant regional evening paper for London and the surrounding area, with coverage of national and international news and City of London...
praised the play, describing it as "one of the best plays of the genre ever written. Its virtues aren't just the main spine of the story, but the way the characters shift, as in real life, the bitter comic conflict between pure and impure science". Viewers were similarly impressed: a panel questioned for an audience report praised The Stone Tape as "thoroughly entertaining" and "both gripping and spine-chilling".
The Stone Tape was one of the last plays Nigel Kneale wrote for the BBC. He had become increasingly disenchanted with the organisation, mainly as a result of the rejection of several scripts such as Cracks, a proposed Play for Today
Play for Today
Play for Today is a British television anthology drama series, produced by the BBC and transmitted on BBC1 from 1970 to 1984. During the run, more than three hundred programmes, featuring original television plays, and adaptations of stage plays and novels, were transmitted...
, and a fourth Quatermass serial. Moving to Independent Television
Independent Television
Independent television can refer to:* Independent Television , a Bangladeshi 24/7 news channel* ITV, a British television network.* Independent station, a terrestrial television station not affiliated to networks....
, he wrote and created series such as Beasts
Beasts (TV series)
Beasts is a series of six television plays by Manx writer Nigel Kneale, unconnected but for a bestial horror theme, made by ATV for ITV in the United Kingdom and broadcast in 1976.-Episodes:-External links:* at the BFI's Screenonline...
and Kinvig and succeeded in getting his rejected Quatermass
Quatermass (TV serial)
Quatermass is a British television science fiction serial produced by Euston Films for Thames Television and broadcast on the ITV network in October and November 1979. Like its three predecessors, Quatermass was written by Nigel Kneale...
scripts produced in 1979. He died in 2006.
The script of The Stone Tape was published, along with the scripts of The Road and The Year of the Sex Olympics in 1976 by Ferret Fantasy under the title The Year of the Sex Olympics and Other TV Plays. A DVD
DVD
A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....
was released by the British Film Institute
British Film Institute
The British Film Institute is a charitable organisation established by Royal Charter to:-Cinemas:The BFI runs the BFI Southbank and IMAX theatre, both located on the south bank of the River Thames in London...
in 2001 with a commentary by Nigel Kneale and critic Kim Newman
Kim Newman
Kim Newman is an English journalist, film critic, and fiction writer. Recurring interests visible in his work include film history and horror fiction—both of which he attributes to seeing Tod Browning's Dracula at the age of eleven—and alternate fictional versions of history...
, sleeve notes by Kim Newman and the script of the play as well as the script of The Road. Unfortunately, this is now out of print and extremely difficult to find.
Cultural significance
One of the first to promulgate the hypothesis of residual hauntingResidual haunting
In the terminology of ghost hunting, residual hauntings, also known as restligeists , are repeated playbacks of auditory, visual, olfactory, and other sensory phenomena that are attributed to a traumatic event, life-altering event, or a routine event of a person or place, like an echo or a replay...
, that ghosts may be recordings of past events made by the physical environment, was Thomas Charles Lethbridge
Thomas Charles Lethbridge
Thomas Charles Lethbridge was a British explorer, archaeologist and parapsychologist. According to the historian Ronald Hutton, Lethbridge's "status as a scholar never really rose above that of an unusually lively local antiquary" for he had a "contempt for professionalism in all fields" and...
in books such as Ghost and Ghoul, written in 1961. Since the broadcast of the play, this hypothesis has come to be known as the "Stone Tape Theory" by parapsychological
Parapsychology
The term parapsychology was coined in or around 1889 by philosopher Max Dessoir, and originates from para meaning "alongside", and psychology. The term was adopted by J.B. Rhine in the 1930s as a replacement for the term psychical research...
researchers.
The Stone Tape was a significant influence on John Carpenter
John Carpenter
John Howard Carpenter is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, editor, composer, and occasional actor. Although Carpenter has worked in numerous film genres in his four-decade career, his name is most commonly associated with horror and science fiction.- Early life :Carpenter was born...
's 1987 film Prince of Darkness in which a group of scientists investigate a mysterious cylinder discovered in the basement of a church. Besides directing the film, Carpenter wrote the screenplay under the pseudonym
Pseudonym
A pseudonym is a name that a person assumes for a particular purpose and that differs from his or her original orthonym...
"Martin Quatermass", and included a reference to "Kneale University". This homage did little to impress Kneale, who wrote in The Observer
The Observer
The Observer is a British newspaper, published on Sundays. In the same place on the political spectrum as its daily sister paper The Guardian, which acquired it in 1993, it takes a liberal or social democratic line on most issues. It is the world's oldest Sunday newspaper.-Origins:The first issue,...
, "For the record I have had nothing to do with the film and I have not seen it. It sounds pretty bad. With an homage like this, one might say, who needs insults? I can only imagine that it is a whimsical riposte for my having my name removed from a film I wrote a few years ago [a reference to Halloween III
Halloween III: Season of the Witch
Halloween III: Season of the Witch is a 1982 science fiction horror film and the third installment in the Halloween film series. It is the only Halloween where the story does not revolve around Michael Myers. Directed and written by Tommy Lee Wallace, the film stars Tom Atkins as Dr. Dan Challis,...
for which Kneale wrote an early draft] and which Mr Carpenter carpentered into sawdust". The play also influenced the 1982 Steven Spielberg
Steven Spielberg
Steven Allan Spielberg KBE is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, video game designer, and studio entrepreneur. In a career of more than four decades, Spielberg's films have covered many themes and genres. Spielberg's early science-fiction and adventure films were seen as an...
and Tobe Hooper
Tobe Hooper
Tobe Hooper is an American film director and screenwriter, best known for his work in the horror film genre. His works include the cult classic The Texas Chain Saw Massacre , along with its first sequel, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 ; the three-time Emmy-nominated Stephen King film adaptation...
film Poltergeist. In the 2004 BBC7 Radio Serial "Ghost Zone", a character refers explicitly to the 'Stone Tape theory' as an explanation for the way an invading alien intelligence is 'replaying' scenes and figures from the past of the remote Scottish village in which the story is set. Author Marty Ross has explicitly acknowledged the influence of Kneale's work, and the Quatermass serials in particular, on his own BBC SF drama. The serial can be accessed at http://za-serials.livejournal.com
The Stone Tape remains well-regarded to this day. Roger Fulton, writing in The Encyclopedia of TV Science Fiction, calls it "arguably the most creepy drama ever seen on television". The writer and critic Kim Newman regards it as "one of the masterpieces of genre television, an authentic alliance of mind-stretching science fiction concepts with horror and suspense plot mechanics". Writer and member of The League of Gentlemen
The League of Gentlemen
The League of Gentlemen are a group of British comedians formed in 1995, best known for their radio and television series.The League of Gentlemen may also refer to:* The League of Gentlemen ,...
, Jeremy Dyson
Jeremy Dyson
Jeremy Dyson is an English screenwriter and, along with Mark Gatiss, Steve Pemberton and Reece Shearsmith, a participant in The League of Gentlemen.-Early life:...
feels that The Stone Tape "strikes a note that it just circumnavigates your intellect and gets you on a much deeper level [...] it just has this impact on you, rather like being in the room itself. Extraordinary piece of work". Writer Grant Morrison
Grant Morrison
Grant Morrison is a Scottish comic book writer, playwright and occultist. He is known for his nonlinear narratives and counter-cultural leanings, as well as his successful runs on titles like Animal Man, Doom Patrol, JLA, The Invisibles, New X-Men, Fantastic Four, All-Star Superman, and...
recalled The Stone Tape as "really creepy and very memorable. Just brilliant images. That scared the hell out of me!". Sergio Angelini, writing for the British Film Institute's Screenonline
Screenonline
Screenonline is a Web site devoted to the history of British film and television, and to social history as revealed by film and television. The project has been developed by the British Film Institute and funded by a £1.2 million grant from the National Lottery New Opportunities Fund.Reviews...
, has said that "The Stone Tape stands as perhaps his finest single work in the genre". Lez Cooke, in his book British Television Drama: A History, has praised the play as "one of the most imaginative and intelligent examples of the horror genre to appear on British television, a single play to rank alongside the best of Play for Today".
External links
- The Stone Tape at the British Film InstituteBritish Film InstituteThe British Film Institute is a charitable organisation established by Royal Charter to:-Cinemas:The BFI runs the BFI Southbank and IMAX theatre, both located on the south bank of the River Thames in London...
's Screenonline - The Stone Tape at Action TV
- DVD liner notes by Kim NewmanKim NewmanKim Newman is an English journalist, film critic, and fiction writer. Recurring interests visible in his work include film history and horror fiction—both of which he attributes to seeing Tod Browning's Dracula at the age of eleven—and alternate fictional versions of history...
at the British Film Institute