Nigel Kneale's BEASTS - episode 1 - SPECIAL OFFER (1976)

 

BEASTS - AN INTRODUCTION - Beasts was a horror anthology series which ran for six episodes back in 1976.

It was written by Quatermass creator Nigel Kneale and was broadcast on the ITV network. It told six self contained tales of terror with the overall umbrella theme of (you guessed it) beasts.

The show only lasted for one brief series but remains fondly remembered by fans of genre TV here in the UK.

A little while ago I ran a series of reviews covering each episode of ITV'S Hammer House Of Horror. These reviews seemed to go down pretty well with my readers, so in the grand tradition of that series I'll be doing the same here and covering each and every episode with the level of detail and attention they deserve.

So without further ado - let us discuss episode one - Special Offer - originally broadcast on the 16th of October 1976...

DIRECTED by Richard Bramall

SCREENPLAY by Nigel Kneale 

STARRING - Pauline Quirke as Noreen Beale, Geoffrey Bateman as Colin Grimley, Wensley Pithey as Mr Liversedge.

PLOT - Noreen Beale is a frumpy awkward teenager working in a dead end job at a rundown supermarket. Her Boss - Mr Grimley utterly despises her, her co-workers laugh at her behind her back and the customers all think she's weird.

Maybe they're right to...

Because Noreen has started to manifest powers to move things via her mind, powers that start off small but eventually grow to match her frustration. Managers, co-workers and customers had all better watch out... Noreen's powers are about to EXPLODE !!!

PERFORMANCES - Pauline Quirke who plays Noreen has always been one of those actresses I've never really seen the appeal of. 

This is mainly due to the fact that I know her from Birds Of A Feather - a massively unfunny sitcom which was broadcast on the BBC in the late 80's/early 90's which was unbelievably popular at the time for some reason. Quirke (and her co-stars) became a celebrity and for a short while she was ubiquitous on British TV screens, forever popping up on chat shows and celebrity game shows and the like. It's safe to say that Quirke was the very textbook definition of  a typically bland, safe and mainstream television personality...

So imagine my surprise upon watching this episode and discovering that she's actually a really good actress in this. Quirke is perfectly cast as the matronly and awkward Noreen.

Noreen is incredibly socially inept, indeed she seems borderline mentally handicapped at first - she's dowdy, barely speaks and seems to have absolutely zero confidence in herself. She also has a huge unrequited teenage crush on her boss - Colin Grimly (Geoffrey Bateman) - even though he's a complete and utter bastard towards her (more on him later).

Noreen's colleagues and the shop's customers are equally sneeringly two-faced towards her. So much so that you begin to appreciate just why poor Noreen is so down trodden and lacking in confidence. The really good thing about Quirke's performance is that you see her slowly starting to unwrap the different hidden depths of Noreen's character as the story progresses and Noreen's supernatural powers begin to manifest. Noreen starts to become a little (not much) more confident, to the point where she starts to become a bit cocky about her powers. She basically begins to come out of her shell with potentially deadly results.

Geoffrey Bateman is also good as Colin Grimly - the sleazy supermarket manager. He's an utter tyrant towards Noreen, calling her out for her dowdy looks, her slovenly attitude and the fact that she possess neither charm or intelligence. Mind you, Noreen is pretty much the only checkout girl he's nasty too as he's too busy trying to get into the knickers of the rest of his female staff (and customers). Basically if it's female, under the age of 35 and reasonably physically attractive then chances are Grimly will try to bed it.

Not only is he a sleazy chancer, he's also ambitious. He's desperately trying to climb the ladder of promotion - today a tiny backstreet supermarket, tomorrow a regional manager, eventually THE WORLD !!!!!...or something. The fact is...Grimly's ambitions are so ridiculously petty that it somehow makes seeing Noreen eventually bring him down a peg or three, even more immensely satisfying to watch.

SFX - Basic props being positioned to fall, baked bean tins with exploding lids. Basically all pretty theatrical stuff to depict Noreen's poltergeist aided telekinetic powers.

VIOLENCE - The only violence comes right at the end when Grimly gets a tin of beans telekinetically hurled at his head at high speed. The heavy tin smacks him a good 'un and he needs medical attention. It's unclear if he survives or not but it's implied that the head injury killed him.

RATING - A decent little start to the show with some good performances and a grimy 70's kitchen sink drama/ITV soap ambience about it. Everything looks nicotine stained and grimy - THIS is the 1970's I remember - not funky Discos and "cool dudes".

The story is basically Stephen King's Carrie but set in a shitty British supermarket. Good stuff.

4 grumpy checkout girls out of 5...oh - and "the beast" that fits into the series's animalistic theme ?

It's the store's cartoon rabbit mascot "Briteway Billy" who adorns all the "special offer" price bins... tenuous I know...

ART -