The idea for the show appeared as BBC radio intended to create a season of programming looking back at the 1950s, and it was the final piece of writing Kneale completed relating to the character.

The series mixes three different strands: a new monologue by Kneale in which he discusses the genesis and development of the Quatermass serials and their main character; archival material from the television productions, and from documentary and newsreel coverage of key events of the times in which they were made, such as the Cold War, the advent of nuclear weapons and the embryonic Space Race; and the dramatised strand, in which the Professor discloses his reasons for reclusion and discusses his demons with a persistent reporter who invades his hermitage (and ultimately becomes his friend).

[5] When Quinn discovered that some of the soundtracks of the Quatermass episodes were considered to be of too poor a quality to use, the idea for the series was re-shaped to add the new elements of Kneale's monologue and archive news reports.

[3] The clips that were used from the original BBC episodes were all carefully edited so that the actors playing Quatermass were never heard, and thus the differences between their voices and Keir's would not confuse the audience.

[7] In 2006 it was released on CD by BBC Audio as part of their Classic Radio Sci-Fi range, with cover artwork by Chris Achilleos.

Despite thinking that such a season of programming was "a necessarily premature commemoration", he felt that both series had "demonstrated how radio's better moments often take conventional pegs and hang some original clothing on them".

[8] The Independent's radio critic Robert Hanks was unimpressed with Kneale's script for the dramatic sections, but praised the performance of Andrew Keir in the title role: "Lesser actors would treat Kneale's downbeat script with a certain detachment, but Keir is prepared to charge even the most banal lines with a terror that's both a treat and a lesson".

If you really wanted to read the age through its movies, you'd have to include Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis, late Ealing and early Norman Wisdom, Marilyn Monroe and Elvis Presley.