needed to step in and assist him during the live performance. Dillon was played by John Stone; Stone too had a long career as a supporting actor in a range of British television series, and in 1956 had a small role in the film X the Unknown, which Hammer Film Productions had intended as a sequel to their version of The Quatermass Experiment, until Kneale denied them the rights to use the character. Four actors who each became well known for a particular role on British television had supporting parts in Quatermass II. Rupert Davies who played MP Vincent Broadhead would go on to find fame as Sûreté detective Commissaire Jules Maigret, the title character of 1960s TV series Maigret, based on Georges Simenon's novels. Roger Delgado, who found fame in the 1970s as the Master in Doctor Who (1971–73), played a journalist who helps Quatermass before falling victim to "the mark" in episode four. Wilfrid Brambell, later star of the sitcom Steptoe and Son (1962–74), appeared as a tramp. and Melvyn Hayes, who played the small role of Frankie, later worked in several films with Cliff Richard. Nigel Kneale not only wrote the serial but, previously an actor, had two speaking parts. He played the voice heard over the factory loudspeaker system in episode five, and narrated the recaps at the beginning of episodes two, three, four and six. Kneale went on to write feature film screenplays such as Look Back in Anger (1958) and The First Men in the Moon (1964), as well as continuing to write for television, including two further Quatermass serials, until 1997. Kneale credited the director Rudolph Cartier with bringing to the screen in Quatermass II, with its ambitious location filming, an expansive style that had not been seen in British television drama beforehand. Cartier worked with Kneale again on the third Quatermass serial, Quatermass and the Pit, in 1958, and had subsequent successes with plays such as Anna Karenina (1961), Cross of Iron (1961) and Lee Oswald – Assassin (1966). He continued directing for television until the 1970s. Episodes Production On 22 September 1955 the ITV network was launched in the UK, bringing commercial television to Britain for the first time and ending the BBC's broadcasting monopoly in the country. The new network's creation had been established by the Television Act 1954, and the BBC had known in advance that it would need