Description

Welcome back to My 70s TV Childhood, the classic British TV podcast about growing up in 1970s Britain and the part television played in our lives. 

This week we're looking back at Beasts, Nigel Kneale's six-part ITV anthology from 1976. There were no castles or alien planets, just a supermarket, a suburban home, an empty dolphinarium, a country cottage, a pet shop and a film studio. It was scratching behind a wall, rather than anything you actually saw, that followed us up the stairs to bed.

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What to Expect

• Why the most disturbing 70s TV, from Armchair Thriller's faceless nun onwards, was rarely the most graphic
• Nigel Kneale, the Quatermass writer who knew an imagined threat is far worse than a visible one
• Special Offer: a young Pauline Quirke and the sinister supermarket mascot Brightway Billy
• During Barty's Party: a suburban couple, a siege of rats, and horror built almost entirely from sound
• Buddyboy: Martin Shaw, a derelict dolphinarium and an awkward evening on the sofa with my parents
• Baby, What Big Eyes and The Dummy: a mummified creature in a cottage wall, Michael Kitchen hunting for wolves, and an actor swallowed by his own monster
• Why watching once, at a fixed time, with no pause button and no internet, let our imaginations finish the job

Which episode of Beasts disturbed you the most? Leave a comment on the blog, on any of our social media pages, or email oliver@my70stvchildhood.com.

Take care,

Oliver

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