Jon Dear
I read with interest your recent guest post, “Finding a Lost Production by Nigel Kneale?” by Professor Philip Jenkins and felt compelled to respond. Thank you for allowing me the opportunity.
A little about myself: I’m a writer on archive British television and film and I’ve written and presented extensively on Nigel Kneale and his work. I’m also privileged to know Andy Murray (Nigel Kneale’s biographer), Toby Hadoke (the authority on Quatermass) and Andrew Screen (the authority on Beasts). We have all been consulted by Kneale’s family on various aspects of his career. We are not academics but neither are we amateurs; we are professional writers and researchers. I mention this not in any sense of boasting but simply to support my wish (and ability) to compose this response. I emphasise however that the following is written in my name only.
The possibility of an undiscovered Nigel Kneale piece of television is always hugely exciting. Back in July 2022 we were all rocked to learn of a previously unknown version of the first episode of The Quatermass Experiment, and only recently a radio adaptation of Quatermass and the Pit from Norway was shared on Twitter (I’m not calling it X). But for the programme in question, Thriller: Hay-Fork and Bill-Hook (1961), Prof. Jenkin offers no evidence, merely poorly considered supposition and a “moral certainty.” I’m afraid I don’t entirely understand the latter point.
I am no expert on US television so I am very happy to be corrected on any inaccuracies.
The Boris Karloff fronted anthology series Thriller ran for two seasons between 1960 and 1962, the episode we’re looking at was the 20th episode of the first season, broadcast on 7 February 1961 on the NBC network.
First, let us look at where Nigel Kneale is in his career at this moment. The 60s can look quite a lean time. He’s largely stopped writing for television in the early part of decade, and his four credited films are all adaptations (although one is at least from his own TV scripts). In reality he was writing a lot of films that never got made, including adaptations of The Patriots and Opium Venture. He even turned down the chance to write the script for the first James Bond film Dr. No. Throughout this time it is hard to justify a reason why NBC or Thriller producers Hubbell Robinson Productions would have contacted Kneale, much less any evidence to support it. However, let us be generous and suggest that some executive had seen The Creeping Unknown (as Hammer’s film adaptation of The Quatermass Xperiment was released as in the US) when it was released in June 1956, even though it was on the bottom half of a bill with The Black Sleep and Kneale didn’t actually write the script. Or perhaps they saw Enemy from Space (Quatermass 2) from September ’57, for which Kneale did receive a writing credit.
We now turn to the episode’s credited writer, Alan Caillou (1914 – 2006), whose real name is Alan Samuel Lyle-Smythe and who like Kneale, was born in England. Caillou was a World War II veteran, and overseas Police Commissioner. His first novel was published in 1955 and he wrote extensively, mainly for North American television, throughout the 60s on series like Flipper, The Fugitive and The Man from U.N.C.L.E. He also wrote for the first series of British anthology Armchair Mystery Theatre, with a set up not unlike Thriller. Caillou was also an actor and appeared in a number of productions that he also wrote the script for, including Hay-Fork and Bill-Hook.
One of the reasons Prof. Jenkins states he is so certain that Kneale wrote this episode is that it features a library scene that advances the plot, and he points to Kneale’s use of the device in both Quatermass and the Pit and The Stone Tape. He doesn’t however point to its countless other uses in films, television and literature. Indeed, the library as a setting is a gothic staple, what Michel Foucault called “the fantasia of the library.” The use of this device connects the characters with the distant past and gives voice to the dead. Libraries as haunted spaces are a useful device, but Nigel Kneale did not invent it.
Jenkins also uses the standing stones as a reason to suspect Kneale’s involvement, but again this seems to betray a wider ignorance of their use. Their function in Quatermass (1979) can stand alongside other British television of the decade such as Escape into Night, The Mind Beyond, Children of the Stones and Stigma. Of course, the use of standing stone far predates television and their use in such classic literature as Thomas Hardy’s Tess of the d’Urbervilles should again suggest there is no straight line between Nigel Kneale and Hay-Fork and Bill-Hook. Oh, and black dog legends are as well known all over the UK and around, with East Anglia’s Black Shuck at least as well known as the Moddey Dhoo.
The episode as viewed is a fairly straightforward investigation led by a British policeman. A reminder: Alan Caillou was a British Policeman. It is also based on a real life case, a case that Caillou would have been aware of.
Prof. Jenkins states that Kneale was occupied “intensely” with writing his adaptation of Nora Lofts’ book The Devil’s Own for Hammer during 1961. This would of course be released as The Witches in 1966. I may have missed something but I can find no information about Kneale working on The Witches that early. Indeed, my understanding is that Kneale only worked on that film at all because Hammer needed more time to get the financing in place for their version of Quatermass and the Pit, and that wouldn’t have been any earlier than 1965.
As for the wicker baskets connection, there are numerous academic articles citing belief in the ancient celts using wicker baskets for individual sacrifice. In any case the practice of Wicker Man sacrifices was known since the publication of Sir James Frazer’s The Golden Bough in 1914, and the practical advantages of using baskets rather than giant wicker men should not be underestimated in television production. Correlation should not imply causation.
I shan’t bother to comment on the Union reason Prof. Jenkins puts forward as to the reason Calliou rater than Kneale is credited on this episode. Dr. Derek Johnston has already commented on the matter and Prof. Jenkins has accepted it.
Finally, one has only to listen to the dialogue in Hay-Fork and Bill-Hook to understand it doesn’t have the style or, dare I say, the quality of a Kneale script. No where can be found the detailed minutiae or stichomythic duologues that populate much of his work. And he’s never going to call a place “Dark Woods.”
If this was a piece written by some blogger, I wouldn’t bother but Prof. Jenkins is an academic and I am deeply concerned others may read it and give this baseless and irresponsible theory credence. As Toby Hadoke said to me: “I’ve gone through all of Kneale’s papers and there’s nothing referring to this at all. That’d be a port of call I’d make before engaging in spurious speculation of this article’s kind.”
I cannot prove Nigel Kneale didn’t write Hay-Fork and Bill-Hook any more than I can prove God doesn’t exist or people don’t turn bright blue the instant I can no longer see them, but that shouldn’t be how this works and I am frankly appalled that an academic is certain Nigel Kneale wrote this without any actual evidence to back them up. For what it’s worth I am certain he didn’t. I shall leave it to others to make up their own minds.
