Journey Back to 1957 with The Midwich Cuckoos

What if a quiet English village wasn't as sleepy as it seemed, but instead harbored a secret as mysterious as it is alien?

Join Fran from Melancholy Mentor and Evan from Mystery Mythos as we unravel the enigma of John Wyndham's "The Midwich Cuckoos." We promise to transport you back to 1957, guiding you through a world where classic literature and radio plays collide. 

Learn about Wyndham's life, from his full name to his intriguing wartime role as a censor, and explore the haunting metaphor of the cuckoo. Discover the strange inspiration behind the village of Midwich and the untold story of Wyndham's abandoned sequel, "Midwich Main."

Chapters

• 0:01 Exploring John Wyndham's Midwich Cuckoos
• 9:41 Discussion on Sci-Fi Favorites

Transcript

Fran: 0:01

Hello everyone and welcome to Melancholy Mentor, where classic literature meets the vibrant world of radio plays. I'm Fran and I'm joined by Evan from Mystery Mythos. Together, we're your guides on this creative journey. During each episode, we'll dive into stories featured on the Melancholy Mentor mental channel, allowing fresh ideas to flourish, inspiring you to dream big and unlock your creative potential. Get comfy, open your mind and embrace curiosity.

Fran: 0:37

Let's get started hello, I'm fran and I'm Evan, aka Mystery, mythos, mystery.

Fran: 0:46

Mythos. So Evan and I are YouTubers, so we've got a channel called Melancholy Mentor and a channel called Mystery Mythos and each week we're going to highlight an episode that we've got on the Melancholy Mental channel. So this week it's the Midwich Cuckoos, which is a story by John Wyndham. Ok, so I've got some information about John Wyndham here. John Wyndham was an English science fiction writer. She called are you ready for this? See how my pronunciation goes John Wyndham Parks, lucas Beynon Harris I'm not sure whether that's Beynon or Beynon Harris. He also used other combinations of his name when writing, such as John here it comes again B Non and Lucas Parks. So John Wyndham was born in 1903 in Warwickshire in England and he passed away aged 65 in 1969, and that was in petersville, which is in hampshire. Ah, I know. So my favorite I've just got to say it my favorite john wyndham story is actually day of the triffids, that's so good that story I know.

Fran: 2:21

I remember when I first saw the, the movie adaptation, absolutely blown away with it and didn't realize at the time it was a story by john windham, more than likely just. I was quite young actually when I saw the movie. Big fan ever since. Yeah, yeah, he's another rabbit hole to go down, which we're not going to do in this episode. And so a little bit more about john windham.

Fran: 2:50

During the second world war he served as a censor in the ministry of information I don't quite know what censor or censor, I don't quite know what that actually means.

Fran: 3:03

So if anybody has information on that or they want to share other things with us, then you know, by all means, let us know, because I'd love to know more about that. He then joined the British army, um, so that's kind of more or less all the information that I've got on John Wyndham at the moment. So going back to the midwich cuckoos, so midwich cuckoos is a 1957 sci-fi novel and it tells the story of an english village and spoiler alert here it involves parasitic aliens. Yeah, I'm going to say too much about the story itself, because we'd love you to actually listen to the radio play. I just going to say too much about the story itself, because we'd love you to actually listen to the radio play . I just want to say as well that cuckoos, the cuckoo birds, are famed for removing other birds eggs when laying their own yeah they will come along and chuck eggs out of the nest and lay their own in their cuckoo.

Fran: 4:05

So cuckoo is quite often a word that's used for things that's kind of similar to that and not saying that we're throwing eggs out of birds nests, but it's like a cuckoo, like um something in the place where it wasn't originally intended. Yeah, yeah, which will allude to the name the Midwich Cuckoos.

Fran: 4:26

Mm-hmm.

Fran: 4:27

Okay, so Midwich, the actual town or village of Midwich, is thought to be inspired by um village in Sussex. Ah, cool, and I read this, so I hope this is true. His muse was HG Wells, who was also located nearby. Now I haven't looked up where HG Wells comes from, but apparently at some point in his life he lived near this place in Sussex, cool, so Midhurst is actually the market town, so the little village or the market town that it's thought to have been based on, and Midhurst the name. Apparently it means middle wooded hill or place amongst wooded hills, right, which actually sounds like a tongue twister.

Fran: 5:27

Yeah.

Evan: 5:28

Yeah, for real, it does Sounds like a tongue twister. So you've got some information about the radio play that's on the Melancholy Mental channel, haven't you, evan?

Evan: 5:38

Yeah, I do. Yeah, it was adapted, uh, by William William Ingram in 1982 and it got broadcast on the BBC World Service um. William Ingram also played the vicar in it as well, so he kind of adapted it which is cool, isn't it?

Evan: 6:00

and then I don't know how big that part would have been, but you know he played the vicar anyway it included. There's some music in there as well, and apparently the music came from somebody called Roger Lim who was part of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop and he did all the music. And then I found another this is a little fun fact Um, john Wyndham started to work on a sequel. , it was going to be called mid, to which main he started writing it. Apparently he wrote two chapters and then he abandoned it, and there's not a reason. It doesn't give a reason why, but he actually abandoned the writing of it.

Evan: 6:45

So I'm like put my jaw back in. I've, I'm. Yeah, I didn't know that. That's really interesting. I wonder where those where that is, I don't know it'd be interesting yeah, I wonder who's actually who owns his body of works.

Evan: 7:00

Maybe it's with. That could be, yeah, fascinating. Yeah, because sometimes you can get something that's been started by by, you know, an author, a creator, who then passes away and somebody else takes the works up. Yeah, yeah, I wonder if this has just been lost to time, or, you know, if nobody knows where it is. That's fascinating, yeah, I've got some stuff on the movie adaptations. Ok, so you've got Village of the Damned.

Fran: 7:32

Yeah, which was in 1960.

Fran: 7:34

So that's an adaptation of Midwich Cuckoos. And then I've got Children of the Damned, which was 1964, and these are all movie adaptations. And then Village, did I say Village of the Damned?

Fran: 7:48

there's a.

Fran: 7:48

Village. Yes, there's Village of the Damned in 1960, there's a Village of the Damned in 1995 as well, and there was also a 2022 TV series, and I actually watched this one calledwitch cuckoos, and it had one season to it yeah, I like that.

Fran: 8:05

I watched that it's brilliant.

Fran: 8:06

It was very, very good, wasn't it?

Fran: 8:08

so that was also an adaptation of um the midwitch cuckoos, and no doubt there are others as well. That's just what I found from poking around. So the tv series series Midwich Cuckoos, which was filmed in 2022, was filmed in Amersham, which is, again, I don't know whether it's a village or a town, what do you know. It's the two village or town In Buckinghamshire and there was a little bit of it filmed probably just in one of the streets in St Albans, in Hertfordshire, cool. So it's like I like that as well. It's like you've got a setting for it, but it's actually made up of different places.

Fran: 8:50

I've watched things before and looked up where they were filmed, cause I'm always like curious about you know, but then what happens? Or where was it filmed? How tall was the actor, you know? And then it's quite often that the front of a building was filmed separately to the interior, which which was like a whole different house or a whole different building somewhere else. Fascinating, yeah, right, so thank you for that. That is oh and the um the mid-witch cuckoos on the melancholy mental channel. So the the radio play adaptation of it is actually in three parts, isn't it?

Fran: 9:24

yeah, three parts they've got it in three parts, so it's like actually in three parts, isn't it? Yeah, three parts. They've got it in three parts, so it's like so I presume that's the full story. Yeah, yeah, that's it, and it's in in three parts, so like, literally, part one, part two, part three. You can find them on the channel. We'll link back and around anything that we can, you know, once we put this out and to help you find it and to help you also to watch other episodes or listen to us, um, chatting, some stuff that we found out about it and I'm really looking forward to digging into day of the trip yeah, that's gonna be a fun one I know, I know I was just so like just my favorite sci-fi story, I think, actually, which is a big, a big thing to declare, isn't it?

Fran: 10:11

you know, you can actually have a favorite story, let alone a favorite sci-fi story, but for me it's it's definitely day of the triffids yeah although midwitch cookies, it's very good I really like midwitch cookies yeah yeah, it's very good, very clever thank you for joining us, listening to my chat about the midwich cuckoos um, which is available to listen to on the melancholy mentor youtube channel in three parts yes and we will speak to you again soon. Thank you very much, bye, bye.