by IAN GREAVES

Five parts. Writer: Troy Kennedy Martin; Adapted from (novel): Angus Wilson; Producer: Jonathan Powell; Director: Stuart Burge

In all the myriad apocalypse dramas produced in the UK, what matters most is where the bomb drops. The drip-drip of radio bulletins in the suburban daily lives of Threads cut straight to the contemporary fear of nuclear war, and the 1984 film’s unfussy depiction of local authority admin echoes the staccato, functional, inevitable nature of Peter Watkins’ The War Game. As a narrative device the anticipation of Armageddon can create real tension, the strike clearing away characters in a single bound and providing a fundamental gear change in a long storyline. After which it’s either about the journey back or, more likely, an acceptance of the new order.

The Old Men at the Zoo, a 1983 serial for BBC2 based on the novel by Angus Wilson, leaves the flashpoint unfashionably late. Although the threat of war is ever present the focus is very much on preparation, propaganda and domestic politics. Curiously, and rather more indicative of the age in which it was adapted, the nuclear bomb that arrives four fifths of the way through was not even present in the novel.

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by IAN GREAVES<\/h4>\n

Five parts. Writer:<\/strong> Troy Kennedy Martin; Adapted from (novel):<\/strong> Angus Wilson; Producer:<\/strong> Jonathan Powell; Director:<\/strong> Stuart Burge<\/p>\n

In all the myriad apocalypse dramas produced in the UK, what matters most is where the bomb drops. The drip-drip of radio bulletins in the suburban daily lives of Threads<\/em> cut straight to the contemporary fear of nuclear war, and the 1984 film\u2019s unfussy depiction of local authority admin echoes the staccato, functional, inevitable nature of Peter Watkins\u2019 The War Game<\/em><\/a>. As a narrative device the anticipation of Armageddon can create real tension, the strike clearing away characters in a single bound and providing a fundamental gear change in a long storyline. After which it\u2019s either about the journey back or, more likely, an acceptance of the new order.<\/p>\n

The Old Men at the Zoo<\/em>, a 1983 serial for BBC2 based on the novel by Angus Wilson, leaves the flashpoint unfashionably late. Although the threat of war is ever present the focus is very much on preparation, propaganda and domestic politics. Curiously, and rather more indicative of the age in which it was adapted, the nuclear bomb that arrives four fifths of the way through was not even present in the novel.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The story is set in 1970. Simon Carter (Stuart Wilson) is the Secretary of the British National Zoo and by far its youngest member of senior staff. Smokey, an ill and frightened giraffe, has killed a warden and the ensuing blame-game fires up the tensions between Director Edwin Leacock (Maurice Denham) and mammal keeper Sir Robert Falcon (Robert Urquhart). Leacock is poised to deliver a major television lecture on his dream of a National Park, an open range for the full zoo collection. Godmanchester (a memorable Robert Morley) is a press baron as well as president of the Royal Zoological Society and uses his powers to position the Zoo as a key propaganda tool on the eve of a European war, and part of this is to grant Leacock\u2019s wish. Images of animals being taken to a new National Park in Wales confirm to the public that there is danger coming, and people flee the cities. “The public,” Godmanchester says, “only really understand animals.”<\/p>\n

The operation backfires, with locals attacked by the wilder animals and Leacock\u2019s own daughter \u2013 a member of Animal Liberation \u2013 savaged by her dog during an act of bestiality in the forest. As the London zoo is hurriedly restored Falcon goes mad with power in his new role as Director, while reptile keeper and political extremist Englander (Marius Goring) retreats to Scotland with his entire collection. London is bombed heavily, with starvation and civil unrest facilitating a new fascist regime which soon positions Englander as the latest Director. A sickening “Europe Day” at the Zoo includes the staging of a Roman circus, with caged “criminals” tormented by lions. Carter, whose wife has left him in disgust at his inaction, attempts to continue as Secretary but his indiscretions eventually place him in a concentration camp. When Liberation Day comes he decides to run for office as the Director of a severely diminished Zoo.<\/p>\n

Published on 25 September 1961, The Old Men at the Zoo<\/em> received mixed reviews and was the first real faltering moment in Wilson\u2019s extraordinary career. Although it had its admirers \u2013 Anthony Burgess, Michael Moorcock and Evelyn Waugh amongst them \u2013 many critics found it a flabby book, with a dislikeable narrator in Carter, a \u2018priggish\u2019 sort who looked coldly on characters who were, as the Times<\/em> put it, “just exhibits in Mr Wilson\u2019s brilliantly lit but obscurely allegorical and cruelly depressing cage.” His novels were heading down the road of high experimentation and the use of a narrator with no particular heroic qualities formed part of this. Wilson defended Carter as a study of “the impossible dilemma of liberal man”, and it\u2019s perhaps telling that in the same year his champion Waugh took similar brickbats for Guy Crouchback, the central figure in Unconditional Surrender<\/em>, the final book in his Sword of Honour trilogy.
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