The Zoo Gang
Space Time Visualiser: 25th Sept 1961: The Old Men at the Zoo
Today the Space Time Visualiser is going to the zoo zoo zoo. How about you?
In all the myriad apocalypse dramas produced in the UK, what matters most is where the
bomb drops. The drip-drip of radio bulletins in the suburban daily lives of Threads cut
straight to the contemporary fear of nuclear war, and the 1984 film’s unfussy depiction of
local authority admin echoes the staccato, functional, inevitable nature of Peter Watkins’
The War Game. As a narrative device, the anticipation of Armageddon can create real
tension, its strike clearing away characters in a single bound and providing a fundamental
gear change in a long storyline. After which it’s either about the journey back or, more
likely, an acceptance of the new order.
The Old Men at the Zoo, a 1983 serial for BBC2 based on the novel by Angus Wilson,
leaves the flashpoint unfashionably late. Although the threat of war is ever present the
focus is very much on preparation, propaganda and domestic politics. Curiously, and
rather more indicative of the age in which it was adapted, the nuclear bomb which arrives
four fifths of the way through was not even present in the novel.
Set in 1970, Simon Carter (Stuart Wilson) is the Secretary of the British National Zoo
and by far its youngest member of senior staff. Smokey, an ill and frightened giraffe,
has killed a warden and the ensuing blame-game fires up the tensions between Director
Edwin Leacock (Maurice Denham) and mammal keeper Sir Robert Falcon (Robert
Urquhart). Leacock is poised to deliver a major television lecture on his dream of a
National Park, an open range for the full zoo collection. Godmanchester (a memorable
Robert Morley) is a press baron as well as president of the Royal Zoological Society and
uses his powers to position the Zoo as a key propaganda tool on the eve of a European
war, part of which is to grant Leacock’s wish. Images of animals being taken to a new
National Park in Wales confirm to the public that there is danger coming, and people flee
the cities. “The public,” Godmanchester says, “only really understand animals.”
The operation backfires, with locals attacked by the wilder animals and Leacock’s
own daughter – a member of Animal Liberation – savaged by her dog during an act of
bestiality in the forest. As the London zoo is hurriedly restored Falcon goes mad with
power in his new role as Director, while reptile keeper and political extremist Englander
(Marius Goring) retreats to Scotland with his entire collection. London is bombed
heavily, with starvation and civil unrest facilitating a new fascist regime which soon
positions Englander as the latest Director. A sickening “Europe Day” at the Zoo includes
the staging of a Roman circus, with caged ‘criminals’ tormented by lions. Carter, whose
wife has left him in disgust at his inaction, attempts to continue as Secretary but his
indiscretions eventually place him in a concentration camp. When Liberation Day comes he decides to run for office as the Director of a severely diminished Zoo.
Published fifty years ago this month, on 25 September 1961, The Old Men at the Zoo
received mixed reviews and was the first real faltering moment in Wilson’s extraordinary
career. Although it had its admirers – Anthony Burgess, Michael Moorcock and Evelyn
Waugh amongst them – many critics found it a flabby book, with a dislikeable narrator
in Carter, a ‘priggish’ sort who looked coldly on characters who were, as the Times
put it, ‘just exhibits in Mr Wilson’s brilliantly lit but obscurely allegorical and cruelly
depressing cage.’ His novels were heading down the road of high experimentation
and the use of a narrator with no particular heroic qualities formed part of this. Wilson
defended Carter as a study of ‘the impossible dilemma of liberal man’, and it’s perhaps
telling that in the same year his champion Waugh took similar brickbats for Guy
Crouchback, the central figure in Unconditional Surrender, the final book in his Sword of
Honour trilogy.
Vital to any understanding of 1983’s quite radical take is the deliberate phrasing in
the opening titles: ‘A Version for Television’. A force as powerful as Troy Kennedy-
Martin was never going to agree to a humble, obedient transfer from the page. He takes
many liberties with The Old Men at the Zoo, restructuring freely, creating new character
motivations and relationships for the sake of plot expediency, ditching the narrator
device almost entirely and expressing a clear preference for his own dialogue. Yet the
satirical intent of Wilson’s novel remains, in the respectful and sensitive sharpening of
the allegory at the heart of the tale: the administrative squabbles at the Zoo, this icon of
an ailing British Empire, serving as a mirror of global unrest.
It’s a structurally sound and well managed script. Rather than a non-nuclear war, the
series really does opt for decimation, totally disregarding the novel’s WW2-ish civilian
effort and a descent into mob rule. Kennedy-Martin favours a more extreme exploration
of how otherwise decent English people would behave if under the rule of fascists, and it
remains remarkable that the concentration camp which Carter is banished to was passed
over by Wilson in a single sentence. Here, it is a grey and utterly dehumanised ten-
minute nightmare that’s totally in keeping with the consequences of Carter’s ‘impossible
dilemma’.
The adaptation is far better for women too, which is a sad thing to report of a novelist
who channelled femininity so effectively in other books (particularly the moving Late
Call). Carter’s wife, Martha, is a real protagonist in this BBC2 adaptation, taking part
in the resistance group, having more of an influence on Falcon and going on a tangible
journey of fear and identity which leads to her sending their children to America for
safety. Director Stuart Burge has a very firm hand on character also, with many of the
cast experiencing eruptions or drastic differences in circumstances that are carefully
worked towards across the five episodes.
In another of those well made BBC serials that we used to take for granted, there is so
much that stands out. A cohesive sense of Empire pervades The Old Men at the Zoo,
with Peter Netley’s opening graphics immediately bringing together the various images
of utopia presented in the story, not to mention the multi-faceted and gently parodic
score by Simon Rogers (who would soon join the spectral English rock band The Fall
during their most commercially successful period). Burge, who had just finished a six-
year stint as Artistic Director of the Royal Court, is adept at energising dense political
discussion with movement and the seemingly endless permutations of settings that a real
Zoo provides for location filming. There’s even a rumour that the parrots got so used to
his cries of ‘CUT!’ that they learnt to mimic him en masse during takes…
On its debut in 1983, the first ten minutes clashed unfortunately with the climax
of Star Wars, the film’s second terrestrial screening albeit at a time when a repeat
could still garner 13.7m viewers on a Thursday night. The Old Men at the Zoo found its
audience nonetheless, with 2.7m on its opening night, holding the rating of the preceding
Kenny Everett Show and charting tenth in BBC2’s ratings for that week. In retrospect, it’s
impressive that later episodes went up against the debuts of John Sullivan’s Just Good
Friends and GF Newman & Les Blair’s The Nation’s Health, and in week four a repeat
of The Naked Civil Servant on Channel 4. Thank heaven for VCRs.
Actually, videotape serves as a good final point. The Old Men at the Zoo was very
comfortable in its own skin as an all-VT production, save for a couple of short pieces of
stock footage here and there. Unfortunately, the production falls short when ‘fantastic’
is needed most. The Roman circus in episode 5 looks a bit cheap and silly, as though
the wild visions of science fiction were slightly beyond a production team more used to
making down-to-earth dramas. There’s no better example than the nuclear strike itself.
It’s a reasonable montage and quite compelling in how it unceasingly emphasises the
staff’s amateurism, but after three and a half hours you’re really expecting something
with the dynamism of Threads’ Peter Wragg and his melting milk bottles of doom. No
such luck.
