Stone Tape
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".