Written by Simon Clark and originally released as a novel in 2001 to mark the 50th anniversary of John Wyndham's original, 'Night of the Triffids' is the story of David Massen - the son of Bill and Josella - and his misadventures on the island of Manhattan having crash landed his plane during a mysterious blackout on a floating island inhabited by many triffids and one young girl and being rescued by a ship full of Americans who whisk him off across the Atlantic.
The novel was adapted by Big Finish in 2014 with Sam Troughton (grandson of Patrick), Nicola Bryant (Peri Brown, assistant to both the 5th and 6th Doctors) and Paul Clayton taking the leads. It's a quick and faithful version of a quick and faithful novel which means it suffers from the same problems as the novel - being overly slavish to the source material and with a very poor casting decision at it's heart but it's an entertaining romp and an enjoyable enough way to revisit the world of the Triffids.
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For those familiar with the novel there'll be no surprises but it's an enjoyably well mannered adaptation that's very much of the time it was written, respectful of the source material and well played with the added bonus of music from David Cain of The BBC Radiophonic Workshop.
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“When a day that you happen to know is Wednesday starts off by sounding like Sunday, there is something seriously wrong somewhere.”
No matter how many times I read it that opening line still gives me chills. I first read Wyndham's masterpiece as a teen having watched and loved the 1981 TV show (US / US) and with little chance then of ever seeing it again. It was love at first read. In fact, it was love at first sentence.
Over the intervening years (decades) I've read it more times than I care to mention and for some reason that I've never quite worked out but mostly I suspect because I can't walk past a copy I've amassed a collection of 25 different editions of the book including one in Dutch and in case you're wondering, no, not a word.
It's the story of Bill Masen and Josella Playton as they navigate a devastated world full of newly blinded people being occasionally preyed upon by genetically engineered and very murdery walking plants. Written in the aftermath of the Second World War the book reflects Wyndham's wartime experiences watching over a London devastated by nightly bombings and muses over still depressingly relevant topics such as catastrophic civil breakdown, social change, genetic modification and even satellite warfare.
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It's 1981 and I'm an 11 year old geek besotted by science fiction, comics and Hammer horror movies and into my world arrives a show about the end of the world and walking, killer plants and there begins an obsession that continues to this day.
Brought to the screen by producer David Maloney, who had previously been responsible for the first three series of Blake's 7 and who with a different hat on had directed several Doctor Who serials during the 60s and 70s including the classics Genesis of the Daleks and The Talons of Weng-Chiang, this version, unlike the previous Howard Keel fronted version - which you can watch here - is a pretty faithful adaptation of the novel.
John Duttine plays Bill Masen who, whilst recovering from eye surgery resulting from a close encounter with a triffid's stinger, fortunately misses out on watching the spectacular meteor shower that blinds the majority of the worlds population. Travelling through a desolated London he rescues Josella Playton (Emma Relph) before joining forces with a group of fellow survivors with plans on how to survive the catastrophe; plans derailed somewhat by the arrival of Jack Coker (Maurice Colbourne).
The end result is a fantastically atmospheric and bleak adaptation with some terrific performances from Duttine, Colbourne and Relph (who after a slightly stiff start improves noticeably through the series as she relaxes into her character). The triffids are well realised if a little tottery and aren't particularly frightening but then they were never the main jeopardy in the story, that was always the other people.
Many of the TV shows beloved of Wyrd Britain - Children of the Stones, The Owl Service or The Changes - screened originally when I was a bit too young to be watching (or remembering) but this one, like Sapphire and Steel and The Quatermass Conclusion was mine. I remember being there to watch it and being utterly mesmerised by it. I loved it on first viewing and still do today.
If
you enjoy what we do here on Wyrd Britain and would like to help us
continue then we would very much welcome a donation towards keeping the
blog going - paypal.me/wyrdbritain
After the sheer ridiculousness of the Howard Keel movie and the faithful reproduction of the BBC's glorious 1981 version this new BBC remake attempts to update the story to modern times and falls quite a long way short of the mark.
It keeps the barest of the bones of the original story and around the blindness and the plants it builds the various strands of it's own story including political machinations, media spin, eco-terrorism and a quest for fatherly approval. Along the way we learn that you can survive a plane crash by hiding in the toilet with some life jackets, nuns are nuts and that Triffid venom cannot penetrate tiny wooden slats.
It is a mess but it's a mess with a bit of a budget so for the most part it looks quite nice. If it had ditched most of the political and familial faff and focused itself on a story of survival in a destroyed world perhaps it would have been a more enjoyable ride.
I'm going to be coming back to The Day of the Triffids a few times over the course of this blog, mostly because it's one of my favourites of favourites. I have a collection of different editions of the novel and read it pretty much once a year and have done so for many years (I'm reading it now). My love of it didn't start with the book however. It didn't even begin with the fantastic 1981 BBC adaptation although that certainly cemented it. It began with the flawed but wonderful 1962 movie that bears very little resemblance to the book.
Howard Keel (Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, Dallas) plays Bill Masen, changed here from a British triffid expert into an American seaman, who, due to surgery on his eyes, misses the meteor shower that blinds most of the rest of the world. He meets a young schoolgirl - Susan (Janina Faye - who had previously appeared in Hammer's Dracula) and together they travel through France and Spain meeting several other sighted people along the way (including Mervyn Johns', Coker and Nicole Maurey's, Miss Durrant) all the time threatened by the alien plants brought to earth in the meteor shower. So far so completely different to the plot of the book.
There is a further story running parallel to the adventures of Bill, Susan and Miss Durrant set on a lighthouse where secluded, alcoholic, scientist Tom Goodwin (Kieron Moore) and his wife Karen (Janette Scott) fight a triffid that spits poison and kills. There's no connection between the lighthouse sequence and the main storyline of the film due to this entire section being written, shot and edited in after the main storyline proved to be too short. It also provides a (frankly absurd) conclusion to the story as the bickering pair discover the Triffid's secret weakness which will enable the world to fight back and reclaim the planet.
I can't even begin to tell you the number of times I've seen this film. In the early 90s it became a drunken tradition to watch it on Saturday night after the pubs shut. It's horribly flawed and with the exception of a couple of names and the walking plants it has almost nothing in common with it's source material but there's something about it I've always loved and probably always will.
Narrated by the 12th Doctor, Peter Capaldi this three part BBC series from 2006 covers many of the classics of the genre - both written and filmed - trying to put them in some sort of context of the times they were written and the lives of their authors.
Episode 1: From Apes to Aliens explores the dawn of the science age with particular attention to H. G. Wells, Olaf Stapledon and Arthur C. Clarke who appears here as one of the talking heads along with Brian Aldiss, Doris Lessing, Brian Stapleford, Kim Newman and others.
Episode 2: Trouble in Paradise (Dystopias) discusses the British talent for imagining the most hideous dystopian societies looking particularly at the two masters, Aldous Huxley & George Orwell along with Nigel Kneale's 'The Year of the Sex Olympics', 'A Clockwork Orange' and '1985' by Anthony Burgess and Margaret Atwood's 'The Handmaid's Tale'.
Episode 3: The End of the World as We Know It closes the series with a look at my personal favourite of all the sci fi genres, the apocalypse and it's aftermath. Within this episode we visit my favourite book, John Wyndham's 'The Day of the Triffids' along with John Christopher's superb 'The Death of Grass', J. G. Ballard's 'The Drowned World' and TV apocalypses Survivors, Threads and The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy.
It's a beautifully made documentary that takes both time and care to present a well rounded examination of it's subject matter through the words of the authors themselves, their contemporaries and a smattering of academics. The very nature of the beast means that much is omitted and books are very much the focus over TV and film, which is no bad thing, but it is thoroughly enjoyable and filled with tantalising insights into many of the defining works of British SF literature.
.jpg "Wyrd Britain reviews The Day of the Triffids (BBC Radio 1968).")
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) and with little chance then of ever seeing it again. It was love at first read. In fact, it was love at first sentence.
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- or listen below.
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- or watch it below.