Our latest office book club selection is John Wyndham’s 1951 sci-fi classic The Day Of The Triffids. It’s a title that has been adapted into multiple mediums, including a widely-derided 1963 movie version which ditches most of the book’s plot and makes the deadly triffid plants vulnerable to sea water.
The 1981 BBC television adaptation is much more faithful to the original storyline, though it uses a contemporary setting which guarantees some poor fashion choices.
So here’s the nit-picking. The Wikipedia entry for the BBC adaptation makes this claim:
It premiered simultaneously in the UK and in Australia on ABC Television.
That struck me as highly unlikely. Sport and Live Aid aside, same-day debuts for UK TV shows were exceptionally rare in Australia during the 1980s. Plus, there’s no source for the claim, which is a big Wikipedia no-no. So I investigated.
When did the ABC first show The Day Of The Triffids?
The show was a co-production by the BBC and the ABC, which was a fairly common pattern for the two public broadcasters across the decade. In practice, that meant the ABC coughed up some of the money to fund the production up-front, effectively pre-purchasing it rather than buying broadcast rights after the fact. (That also potentially gave it some feedback into scripts and casting.)
The Sydney Morning Herald reported on 16 March 1981 that the show was one of four co-productions between the ABC and BBC planned for the year. Others included the prisoners-of-war drama Tenko, science documentary series The Labyrinth and the second series of Nanny, the drama created by and starring Wendy Craig.
The first episode of The Day Of The Triffids was broadcast on BBC1 on Thursday 10 September 1981. Here’s a listing from the Bolton News for that day.
But it didn’t appear in Australia until eight months later, making its debut on Tuesday 11 May 1982 at 8:50pm. Here’s a highlight listing for it from the SMH on that day:
While the BBC transmitted the show as 6 30-minute episodes, in Australia it went out as 3 50-minute editions, finishing up on Tuesday 25 May 1982. (Recaps and repeat titles account for the slightly shorter total length)
Local reviewers had mixed opinions of the production. The Age‘s Babrara Hooks (6 May 1982) praised the Triffid effects but wasn’t impressed by the cast, especially lead actor John Duttine:
It’s the people who reduce this three-part BBC production to a rather dull unconvincing shadow of the author’s intentions.
“Overall, the BBC has let us down with this one,” Hooks concluded. “But the Triffids are triffic.”
The SMH‘s Jacqueline Lee Lewes (9 May 1982) was a little more enthusiastic:
Since its preview last week, my nights have been haunted by terrifying dreams of killer vegies and homicidal plants which have shaken me up so much that even in broad daylight it’s been hard to even look a lowly spud in the eye.
However, she also wasn’t a fan of some of the acting:
Particularly implausible was one woman frantically tearing at a packet of soap suds in the mistaken belief it was food.
However, the next day in the same paper Louisa Wright (10 May 1982) was much more enthusiastic. “It is a four-star, stay-home program,” she said, singling out Duttine’s lead performance for praise.
Brian Courtis in the Age (11 May 1982) had a more mixed opinion:
Direction, script and acting may be only passable, but the special effects are excellent; and believable monsters are what science fiction is all about. These triffids look real, and hungry enough to make you plant a concrete lawn.
A year later, the ABC repeated the show – but compressed into a single two-and-a-half hour movie format and shown at 8:30pm on Saturday 14 May 1983.
Mike Carlton in the SMH (18 May 1983) described this as “revealed by the promos to be about a lot of English actors being attacked by chunks of fibreglass”. Oh dear.
That wasn’t the show’s last Australian broadcast run either. The ABC reran the show starting on Tuesday 6 January 1987 at 8:30pm, reverting to the 50-minute format. Clearly that was scheduled as summer holiday filler.
Ultimately, the ABC got good value from this co-production – but it’s simply not the case that it raced it onto Australian screens. (And yes, I’m updating the Wikipedia entry.)
For more Aussie TV history, check out whether Kwicky Koala is actually Australian and the full Australian broadcast history of the Star Wars Holiday Special.
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