The Day of the Triffids TV Drama Series 2009

BBC Remake and Why Viewers Can't Resist Global Disaster and Mayhem

Jan 29, 2009

John Wyndham's The Day of the Triffids has been dramatised several times before and might be a bit dated now. But like a supervirus, it won't go away.

The BBC is currently filming yet another version of the Triffids, to be broadcast later this year.

The novel's recurring success may initially seem unlikely. It's hard not to smirk at the idea of walking, man-eating plants (the triffids are even ridiculed at first in the novel), and the dialogue feels as though it could only be spoken in those silly clipped accents heard in old British movies.

In addition, the author has been accused of writing cosy ‘middle-class catastrophes’ (by Christopher Priest) and of being devoid of ideas (Brian Aldiss).

Horror on the doorstep

Even Andy Sawyer, who looks after Wyndham’s archive at the University of Liverpool, told this author, ‘It will be interesting to see how the BBC do it, but I wish they would do some new sci-fi instead of re-doing old stuff.’

Wyndham’s critics may have been riled by the fact that his novels, which include The Midwich Cuckoos, were often about understated chaps dealing with horrors on their doorstep rather than intergalactic empires and androids.

Simon Clark and The Night of the Triffids

He also gave momentum to a new sci-fi sub-genre that still has the power to disturb readers nearly 60 years after publication, with its theme of irrational science accidentally obliterating society.

Simon Clark, the horror/sci fi author who wrote a sequel to Wyndham’s book, The Night of the Triffids, told this writer, ‘HG Wells and the early Arthur C Clarke stories were about how we’ll be in heaven once we introduce huge robots and computers, and nothing can go wrong.

‘But now people do fear technology, whether it’s bombs or genetic modifications.’

Mass Suicide and Starvation in London

In the book, the triffids have apparently been bio-engineered in the Soviet Union to produce oils that are superior to existing animal and plant extracts. That they are man-eating and move about on stumps is not a problem so long as they are tethered and farmed. They are even mocked in newsreels as wacky ‘vegetables on vacation’.

But when the world’s population is blinded by a meteor shower (possibly a misfiring satellite weapon in testing), humans become sitting ducks for the rampaging triffids.

28 Days Later… and I Am Legend

The book’s hero, Bill Masen, witnesses mass suicide, violence and starvation in London, ‘the groping city’, and it is easy to see how the novel has inspired screen apocalypses such as 28 Days Later…, I Am Legend and Survivors (also recently remade by the BBC).

Clark says, ‘Day of the Triffids is fresh for every generation. It was published in 1951, just after the Second World War, when there was rationing and areas of cities were bombsites. It seemed as if civilization had fallen apart. Since then people have rediscovered the novel. Now, they say it’s about genetically modified crops and we fear something like that might happen in real life.'

If Not Terrorism, How About Asteroids?

‘Terrorism is my ongoing fear,' he says. 'But as soon as one global fear recedes, another one takes its place. Someone will say, Do you realise an asteroid might wipe out the human race any minute now?’

Sawyer says, ‘Two things make the novel special. One is the wonderful way is which someone invents a word that becomes part of the language. You know, people in garden centres saying some plant looks like a triffid. Second, the plot caught so many anxieties. When it came out people feared nuclear war.’

The BBC has produced Triffids for radio three times and once for TV in 1981. A movie version was released in 1962.

This year’s model is being adapted in two 90-minute episodes by British writer Patrick Harbinson, who has penned episodes of British dramas Soldier Solider and Heartbeat, and ER and Law & Order in the US. The cast is yet to be announced.

Contemporary and Highly Topical Script

Executive Producer Justin Bodle says the adaptation will be based on ‘a fantastic contemporary and highly topical script’.

Could it inspire a second sequel from Simon Clark? ‘You never know. It was great fun to write the sequel. It got a lot of feedback. Wyndham is a little dated but his ideas always seem brand new.’

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