22 June 1918: birth of David Ellis, who co-wrote The Faceless Ones (1967) with Malcolm Hulke.
22 June 1953: birth of Ian Levine, among other things continuity consultant to John Nathan Turner.
22 June 2010: death of Pennant Roberts, who directed The Face of Evil (1977), The Sun Makers (1977), The Pirate Planet (1978), Shada (unbroadcast but would have been 1980), Warriors of the Deep (1984) and Timelash (1985).
I recommend the later text – I read both in rapid succession last year, and that later version is definitely better, and may address some of your comments about the characterisation, if not the plot.
I think it’s a bit unfair to do the cast comparison. There’s some truth to what you say, but there were some names involved in the tv version – Freddie Jones, for a start, and Stratford Johns. Okay, those are cameos, but Hywel Bennett was a notable actor in a major role, and Capaldi was hardly a newcomer in ’96. Maybe not as stellar as the radio cast, but assembling that sort of cast for radio is easier and cheaper, and I doubt you’d be able to get the same actors for a tv version even today.
I think it’s a better novel than it is a tv series – largely because there are a lot of very good actors delivering dreadful performances. And, whilst the novel is no Stardust, it still seems to go down well with students.