 After the end of the war he continued to perform for theatre and increasingly for television . He met the Austrian television director Rudolph Cartier when Cartier cast him in his BBC production of It Is Midnight , Dr Schweitzer in February 1953 . Cartier was impressed with Tate 's performance , and later that year offered him the lead role in The Quatermass Experiment , a science @-@ fiction serial he was directing , written by BBC staff scriptwriter Nigel Kneale . Tate was the second choice for the part of Professor Bernard Quatermass ; Cartier had previously offered it to his co @-@ star It Is Midnight , Dr Schweitzer , André Morell , who declined the role . Morell would later play Quatermass for the third instalment of the series , Quatermass and the Pit . Tate however was a success in the part , and in a 1986 interview Nigel Kneale named him as his favourite of all the actors to have played the character . The serial itself was also a success , with the British Film Institute later describing it as " one of the most influential series of the 1950s . " Tate took an increased interest in television , and later in 1953 enrolled on the BBC 's staff training course to become a television producer . He also began to spend much of his spare time teaching acting classes at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art ( RADA ) , feeling that he had experience which might be useful to younger actors . 
